


Cold, Empty Mattresses and Falling Stars

by conshellation



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:54:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25652440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/conshellation/pseuds/conshellation
Summary: prompt: 2009 au where phil and his family own a campground/cabins in an area that is known for stargazing and phil has lived his entire life there, therefore knowing a lot about stars. dan and his family come from the city to said campground because dan is a nerd and asked to come there for his birthday.
Relationships: Dan Howell & Phil Lester, Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37





	Cold, Empty Mattresses and Falling Stars

**Author's Note:**

> hey so i literally wrote this five years ago in the space of about 24 hours but felt like (finally) bringing it here as it's one of my fave pieces and it was so much fun to write!! (also the ao3 format is so much nicer than tumblr)
> 
> if a long ass emo narrative including stars and campsites n slow-burn love sounds like ur kinda thing then here ya go
> 
> enjoy <3

_stargazer_

_ˈstɑːɡeɪzə/_

_noun_

**_1._** _A person who gazes at or observes the stars_

 ** _2._** _A daydreamer_

 ** _3._** _An impractical idealist_

-

It’s gone three in the morning, but Phil doesn’t make any effort to be quiet. He lets the log cabin door slam shut behind him, and flops down onto the cushioned sofa. The fabric is cold from the night and the lack of central heating (the radiators switch off at 11pm) but he curls up until his chin touches his knees.

It isn’t _fair_.

Phil wants to go to Joe’s party tomorrow. He wants to live in an area that doesn’t involve a long car journey to get to anywhere even vaguely resembling an area of civilisation. The nearest village is three hours away, never-mind the nearest _town_ or _city_. He’s isolated in the countryside, and _it isn’t fair_.

Phil wants to see his friends every single day – how come Stacey and Lisa get to live next fucking door to each-other? Phil lifts his head lazily, and all he’s met with is the sight of tall, thin tree trunks consuming his view from the back window. The coniferous wood behind the cabin is his only next-door neighbour. He’d _kill_ for what Stacey and Lisa have.

He’d kill for what _anyone_ else in his class has, really – a home in a _normal_ area, a _normal_ neighbourhood surrounded by _normal_ stuff. He wants a _normal fucking life_ where his father doesn’t have to cycle forty-five minutes to the nearest convenience store to get the newspaper and they don’t have to cook dinner over a fire instead of an oven. He’s sick of the isolation, he’s sick of the loneliness, and he’s sick of the abnormality. No wonder no-one invites him anywhere – by the time Phil would’ve managed to get to the town, they would’ve all gone home.

He’s lived here his whole life, and he’s never known any different. He’d think he’s used to it by now, but he still can’t escape how it gets him down when an event like this comes up. Joe’s meant to be his best friend, and he knows getting a blow-by-blow recount of everything that happened that night (if he gets enough phone signal to steal a couple of minutes of texting that is) is going to sting. He wouldn’t have minded had there been actually no way out of it, and that’s the most frustrating thing – he _could’ve_ been able to go. Had his fucking parents not gone away for three days on some kind of business meeting, he could’ve been there tomorrow, amidst the excitement and hype filling the air.

‘Business meeting’, yeah, Phil scoffs. What kind of ‘business’ is there to be discussed in fucking _Scotland_ with fellow campsite owners? What different kinds of marshmallows can be perfectly roasted on an open fire? What the best raincoats are to keep the drizzle away when it’s six in the morning and you’re looking for the tent pegs? Which walking boots are the most mud-resistant? He doesn’t reckon ‘ _business_ ’ is the appropriate word; it gives off too much of a ‘briefcase-and-suit-and-coffee-and-big-cities’ vibe. And he doesn’t think the ‘meeting’ is entirely appropriate either – it isn’t as if there are going to be more than four or five of them, as opposed to a gathering of twenty sat around some long table in an office. That’s what comes to mind when he thinks ‘business meeting’; that’s the _normal_ definition of one.

Although, business meeting or not, he certainly doesn’t want to keep watch of the fucking campsite while his parents are away – that’s _their_ job, not his. He’s just the lonely, hormonal teenager, the son of the owners, the one who sleeps all day and comes out at night. The only thing he’s trained to keep watch of is the night sky, not countryside-loving-amateur-stargazing-campers-get-your-fucking-telescope-out-of-my-field people who feel the need to keep him awake with their late-night conversations and early morning arguments about ‘who took the last of the toothpaste’.

He shivers in the cabin, still keeping his stare out of the window. He can’t sleep now, he’s too annoyed and the sofa’s too cold. He hauls himself up, walking over to the window beside the door, ignoring the way the wooden floorboards creak under his weight.

It’s a quiet night tonight though, he realises. There are only two tents pitched in the site, and by the looks of it, both families are asleep, so the stargazing field would be clear. He could go there, he supposes, but it’s summer so he won’t have much time under the sky before sunrise intrudes. Plus, the meteor shower was last week so most of the keen stargazers had gone home a couple of days ago. Whatever’s up there right now, and Phil can’t see because the window glass is smudged and the trees are in the way, won’t be there for long, so it’s not worth him going out there. It’s not worth him really doing _anything_.

He flops back down on the sofa, grabbing a quilt and pulling it tighter over his cold body, shivering into a cushion and shutting his eyes. He might be cold, and he might be annoyed, but it’s better than being disappointed.

He’s no stranger to _that_ feeling.

-

“-and we might even get to see the _whole_ of Orion, not _just_ his belt, I mean, I’ve only ever seen his belt and that was _ages_ ago so I’ll probably need a stellarscope to help me find it, but next to Orion there’s Bull but that’s part of a bigger constellation which is Taurus, and then you have Pleiades- I’ve always found Pleiades a really cute one, because it’s so tiny and you can only see it if you’re really-“

“Have you ever considered a _very_ important fact about the sky, though?” Dan’s brother tears his gaze off of the car window, his voice heavy with sarcastic enthusiasm.

“What’s that?” Dan frowns

“The fact that I couldn’t give a _shit_ about it?” his brother says, his eyebrows raised.

Dan sighs, sinking back into the car seat. His mother frowns in the rear view mirror.

“Can’t you be _nice_ for once, Liam?” she sighs exasperatedly.

“Why should I?” Liam mumbles grumpily. “ _I_ didn’t want to go on this stupid trip.”

“This isn’t about you, it’s about _Dan_ ,” she mutters. “It’s _his_ birthday.”

“Exactly – _his_. It’s what _he_ wanted to do. Not _me_.”

“Like I said, this _isn’t abou_ -“

“Just leave it, Mum,” Dan mutters sadly, shoving a headphone back in. He should’ve known better than to start spouting his star nonsense onto his brother, of all people, but it’s harder to control when he gets excited. It’s harder to control _anyway_ ; he has no-one to talk to about what he’s interested in, no-one who even _remotely_ cares about anything inside the shelves and shelves of books embellished with science and astronomy and space and everything Dan loves.

 _Dan_ loves it, sure, but no-one else does.

He doesn’t know whose fucking stupid idea it was to take Liam on the trip - he knows better than anyone else does that he’s going to hate it. He doesn’t like camping, he doesn’t like tents, or rain, or coldness, and he certainly doesn’t give two shits about the main attraction of the campsite; the sole reason people endure the rain and the coldness and the tents.

It’s one of the best stargazing hotspots in the country.

It’s hours away from the nearest village, Winghurst, so they’ve already packed with what they’ve called their “two weeks” supply of food, but when Dan had lifted the crate, he’d reckoned a “two _year_ ” supply would’ve been a more suitable term to give it, and he’d had to drop it back onto the floor because of its abnormal weight. They’ve packed the most stupid and irrelevant stuff, too – what the hell will they be needing _maple syrup_ for? It’s hardly as if they’re going to be making anything more adventurous than beans on toast and pasta for their meals, never-mind _pancakes_.

None of his family understand camping, really – this is the first time they’ve been as a family, but Dan’s had plenty of experience alone. He did Duke of Edinburgh right up to the gold award just for the camping (even though he’d got into trouble during the bronze award in year ten for not staying in his tent at night and they hadn’t trusted him since), and he’s been with friends a few times, which was fun. To be honest, he’d rather go with them now.

He _would’ve_ gone with them, but no-one wanted to drive all this way out of the city.

And, of course, no-one cares about stargazing.

So he’s stuck with his family. For two weeks.

He tries to tell himself it’ll be okay, it’ll be _fun_ , the stars will be clearer than ever and that’s pretty much the only reason he’s even going, so what’s the problem?

But the stars are only there at night, and he still has the daytime to contend with. Daytime-after-daytime of hiking up hill-after-hill, staring at old castle remains and being told some weak history he doesn’t want to hear by some boresome tour guide. Plus he doesn’t think he can survive more than a day with his family without biting someone’s head off at some point – they’ve never done camping, they aren’t exactly the picture-perfect-camping-type of family to begin with; Dan’s father and brother are only being forced here because Dan’s mother had _insisted_ on it. Dan knows she just feels sorry for him.

He sighs, glaring stonily out of the window, leaning his head on the glass and watching the trees race past as they hurtle down the motorway.

Happy birthday to him.

-

Phil doesn’t know how long he’s slept for, but when he wakes up, the sun is pretty high, so he assumes it’s probably around midday. _Fuck_.

He hauls himself out of his makeshift sofa-bed-thing, stretching out his back which is aching due to sleeping in such an awkward position, and he sighs deeply. The cabin’s been warmed by the sun since he fell asleep, and that’s what annoys him the most about this fucking thing; no climate control – it’s too hot in the day, and too cold at night.

He stretches again, wincing at the tightness in his muscles, before he stands up and walks over to the sink, splashing cold water on his face in an attempt to wake himself up a little. He brushes his teeth lazily, and assesses his reflection. There isn’t time to do his hair, so a couple of messy ruffles through his fringe will have to suffice. Being on a campsite, it isn’t exactly as if there’s anyone to _impress_ , is there?

He makes it a total of three seconds out of the door before being approached by a camper. That’s a record – more often than not he’s woken up to angry thumping at his cabin door from someone– usually the type who think the rocks under their tent is somehow _his_ fault, and not _theirs_ for pitching their tent in a fucking _stupid_ place.

“Ah, Lester-“ the voice approaches him. He rolls his eyes, painting a false smile on his face before spinning around. The woman, who he realises is forty-year-old Mrs. Peters, stands behind him, holding a saucepan in her hand. “I don’t suppose you know anywhere that sells pasta, do you? We finished the last of it last night, and-“

 _Maybe the fucking supermarket_ , Phil’s sleep-deprived mind mutters. “The nearest shop is forty-five minutes away, I’m afraid,” he _actually_ mutters, false politeness saturating his voice.

She stares at him. “Forty-five minutes?” he nods.

“I’m afraid so,” _you probably should’ve thought of that before you came to this campsite, shouldn’t you? I mean, it’s known for its stargazing, of course it’s in the middle of fucking nowhere, it isn’t as if you can just pop to Tesco and-_ “I could see if we have anything for you, though?” he pushes what he’s actually thinking out of his conscious mind in fear of accidentally coming out and saying it.

Her face lights up. “Oh, would you?”

“Of course,” he smiles, beckoning her over to the main cabin.

She follows him inside, standing patiently by the doorway as he sifts through cabinet-after-cabinet of packets and tinned food.

“I’m sure it’s here somewhe- ah,” relief floods through him as he finds a half finished pack of fusilli at the back of the cupboard. He hops down from the worktop and handing it to her. “There you go.”

She beams at him. “Thank you, love.”

He beams back, his face aching. “No problem at all.”

She gets as far as the cobble path about two metres away from the cabin door, before she turns back around. “Oh, Lester?”

“Yes?” he bites his tongue. He’s lost count of the number of times he’s stressed to Mrs. Peters that his name is _Phil_ and there’s a little more to him than his surname, but he’s given up now. Lester it is – this campsite _is_ family-run, he guesses.

“I don’t suppose you know where the water is, do you?”

Definitely a first-time camper. _Definitely_.

He sighs. “It’s just over there,” Phil nods over to the pipe to her left. “The faucet clearly labelled ‘ _water_ ’.”

She luckily sees through his passive-aggressiveness. “Oh!” she giggles. “Silly me. That’s brilliant, thank you!” she nods cheerfully, making for the water pipe. Phil doesn’t bother smiling back – she’s turned away, she can’t see. She wouldn’t know whether he’d be waving her off, or _flipping_ her off.

Call him rude, but Phil knows which one sounds the most tempting.

He slowly backs away into the cabin – technically, he should be watching over the information desk right now, but he doesn’t think he can face it quite yet. Besides, what’s going to happen at an unattended desk in a campsite? A couple of brochures might get stolen? Maybe the birdwatching guide? What about the _maps_?

He slumps on the wooden kitchen table, sulking. It’s quarter past one in the afternoon – Joe’s party is probably the talk of the town, right now. He can almost sense the hype and excitement that’ll be filling the fucking air despite being over three hours away from everything remotely interesting. He doesn’t need to be there to know what it’s going to be like.

He’s hungry, and he rather wants some pasta, to come to think of it – he half-wishes he hadn’t been so overly-polite. He should’ve let her just go to the shop, to be honest; but if he isn’t so hospitable, the hostility will begin to leak out, and he knows the former is probably the best thing to go with; in the grand scheme of things, no pasta is better than no customers.

He sighs, grabbing a few Kit-Kats from the counter. They need to go food shopping, really, there’s hardly anything left and Phil’s been having to live off chocolate and Doritos for the past week.

He stays there, nibbling the chocolate and the wafer layers thoughtfully until there’s another knock at the door.

-

“Are we nearly there yet?” Liam whines, flopping his head back into the seat desperately.

“An hour to go, love,” Dan’s mother forces a smile. Dan thinks she’s finally realising what a mistake it was to bring Liam, but he’s too young to be left on his own for two weeks.

Dan’s father hasn’t said anything for the past two hours; his eyes have barely moved from the window. Dan doesn’t know why he couldn’t stay at home and look after Liam, to be honest; maybe because Dan’s mother doesn’t fancy the idea of two weeks of just her, alone with Dan.

Dan doesn’t blame her, to be honest; he hasn’t exactly been one for any mother-son quality time himself.

Nor father-son time, for that matter. Not really _anyone_ -son time, to be honest.

And as for _brother-brother_ time, Dan shudders. Don’t even _go_ there.

He kind-of feels bad, in a way; he’s the only one who actually wants to be here, and even so, the idea of being stuck with three people who want nothing _less_ than to camp with him for two weeks is starting to become less and less appealing to him. He tries not to think about it too much, and instead increases the volume of his iPod by a couple of notches and hopes Pierce The Veil can drown out his thoughts and Liam’s voice just a _little_.

He notices their surroundings are beginning to dissolve into something progressively more rural than what they’d left behind in the city – he thinks it must have been at least an hour since they passed something resembling a _building_ of some kind; all they’re driving through now is road-after-road framed by miles and miles of fields, hills and clusters of forests. He’s pretty sure it’s been at least half an hour since they last passed a car, or _any_ kind of vehicle for that matter.

Dan can’t tell if he’s excited or not. Mainly because he knows what a fine line there is between these being either the best two weeks of his life, or the _worst_.

He can still hear Liam’s whinging voice through his headphones, and he turns the music up another notch.

-

“Like I _said_ , if you take this trail-“ Phil points to the blue squiggle on the map, “through the woods, then all around here, it’ll take you straight back to the site. It’s a circular. There’s no need to take the car.”

The old lady sniffs. “There’s no need for _that_ tone.”

“This is the fifth time you’ve asked me about it, ma’am,” Phil rests his head on his hands, keeping his eyes to the map he’s been staring at for so long he’s pretty sure the symbols have moved and blurred, and the paths and rivers are wriggling away right under his nose. “Have I made it clear enough for you now?”

The old lady snatches the map away. “I _suppose_ so. Although if we get lost and I find out it’s because of your directions, I’ll-“

“Is there anything else I can do for you?” Phil cuts her off with honeyed politeness; the rudeness is _dangerously_ close to escaping and he hopes she leaves now until he mutters something he really will regret.

That’s what has always pissed him off about old people – they’ll constantly tell you to speak up and play the selective hearing card, then when you mumble one _literally fucking inaudible_ remark about what you _really_ think, suddenly their supersonic hearing abilities decide to miraculously kick in. That’s happened to him more times than he cares to remember, and he bites his tongue and smiles up at this dreadful customer to avoid it happening again – if _anyone_ has particularly great supersonic hearing, it has to be her.

“I guess that’ll do for now,” she sniffs again, and Phil has to resist the urge to stuff the nearby box of tissues on the desk into her bag along with her stupid map. She turns away, making for the door as Phil turns back to the computer.

“You’re welcome,” he mutters sarcastically; there’s no _way_ he can resist it. She pauses, obviously wondering whether to bother with arguing or not, before eventually yanking the door open and letting it slam behind her.

Suits him, fine. He hopes she _does_ get lost.

He isn’t even _doing_ anything on the computer – he only booted it up in order to look occupied and has spent the last fifteen minutes playing _Snake_. It isn’t as if he can do anything else on it – they get a certain amount of wifi on a USB stick every month for the purpose of answering e-mails and updating their website, but that’s just about it. Plus they’ve used up this month’s already.

On the bright side, however, he’s managed to beat his hi-score.

-

“But if I-“

“For the final time, Liam, there’s no way you could get a phone signal here,” Dan’s mother sighs as they steer down some bumpy, winding road leading to the site. The car jolts, Liam complains, Dan’s mother argues, and Dan gulps.

The site is beginning to look really, _really_ pretty. Once they’d turned off the deserted motorway and followed the signs down to the campsite, the roads they drive down seem to be going further and further into the deepening coniferous wood. Neat rows of tall, thin tree trunks surround either side of them for what looks like miles, moss carpets the forest floor and woodland debris scatters the narrow, uneven path they drive down. Dan’s grown up in the city, it’s what he’s always been used to, but fuck, natural beauty really _is_ something he should appreciate more. It makes him wish his life wasn’t such a twenty-four hour trap in a concrete forest of pollution and traffic, and reluctant as they may be, maybe this trip might be good as an escape for _all_ of them, being close-minded city folk. Ever since they turned off and began driving towards the car park, even _Liam_ had gone a bit quiet.

They approach a gravelly opening which, judging by the rows of neighbouring cars, jeeps and range rovers, is probably the car park. There’s a family standing on the other side of the park, arguing by an open car boot absolutely stuffed to the brim with tents, food, deckchairs and if Dan’s eyes aren’t fooling him, he thinks they’ve even brought their own _firewood,_ too. He wants to smirk, he wants to roll his eyes and scoff at the inexperienced city-born folk trying to conquer the countryside because there are a couple of stars up here, but he withholds his humour – that’ll probably be what he and his family will look like in about ten minutes’ time.

They park up, and Liam’s the first to unlock the car door and escape, immediately complaining that his legs are hurting from being ‘ _cooped up in that stupid car for like five hours or whatever_ ’ and that there was ‘ _no fucking legroom oh my god my legs_ ’.

“ _Language_ ,” Dan’s mother hisses, giving him a stern glare. Liam ignores it, kicking the dust up on the ground, creating clouds of dirt around his feet instead of helping the rest of his family unload the car.

They stagger under the weight of camping luggage, tents, deckchairs and just about everything else _except_ firewood to what looks like the main campsite, judging by the two other tents in the opening.

“Right, Liam, help your father pitch the tents,” Dan’s mother ignores the groan of reluctance that Dan’s younger brother responds with, “Dan and I will go and find some information, won’t we?” she raises her eyebrows at the brown-haired boy who doesn’t hesitate to get up to join her – anything’s better than helping these two miserable bastards put up a couple of tents and unpack.

“Sure,” Dan gives her a grateful nod, following her in the direction of what looks like the main cabin.

-

Phil notices another car pull up, and he watches carefully. As soon as they all get out, his suspicions are raised by their lack of appropriate camping clothing – they’re not even wearing boots, for Christ’s sake, but when they open the overloaded car-boot, it just about tops it – from the amount of luggage they have in there, they’re _definitely_ city folk.

He fights back a giggle, watching the youngest of the family, a boy of about twelve, he estimates, kick the stones and have a passive-aggressive tantrum, watches the mother fiercely try and stop her brat of a son from showing her up (as if there are enough people here to be shown up in front of), who he assumes is the father struggle with mountains of unnecessary belongings, and some other kid traipsing behind the family, obviously trying to pretend he isn’t with them. Phil doesn’t blame him, to be honest – he’d probably do the same if he were in the boy’s position. He watches as they emerge from the car park into the campsite, and he shuts his eyes with dread as he sees the mother and presumably the other son of hers walking towards the cabin.

This sure will be fun.

-

“Er, excuse me?” Dan’s mother pokes her head through the gap between the door. She takes a step into the cabin tentatively, holding the door open for Dan to follow behind.

The black-haired teenager minding the desk lifts his head from the computer, staring at Dan’s mother with bored eyes. “Can I help?”

“Is-… er, is this the information centre?” she studies the brochures to the teenager’s left, the maps to his right, and the posters covering the walls behind his desk.

He glances up to the sign clearly labelled “INFORMATION CENTRE” above her head, fixing her with a deadpan stare.

“Oh,” she laughs nervously, looking up too, before returning to fumbling around in her bag, her bracelets jangling. The receptionist rolls his eyes at the amount of jewellery she’s wearing.

“Did you come here for anything specific, ma’am?” he mumbles, his glance briefly flickering to Dan for half a second.

“Do you think I could speak to the manager?” she asks.

“The managers aren’t here, I’m afraid,” he says. “It’s just me.”

“Oh,” she says disappointedly.

He narrows his eyes. “What did you want to talk to them for?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter, love,” she mumbles, obviously put off by his age – as if being a teenager makes him instantly incapable of running a campsite.

Dan frowns at her. Why’s she being so _patronising_?

“No, I’m sure it’s nothing I can’t handle,” he shrugs.

“Do you-… er-… do you provide phone signal and wifi and stuff here?” she holds up her BlackBerry as if the receptionist needs any _proof_ her phone isn’t working in the middle of nowhere.

The boy rolls his eyes. “Which city are you from, then?” he raises an eyebrow.

“Well, we live in Brightlake, and-“ Dan’s mother frowns suddenly, “wait, what does _that_ have to do with wifi access? How do you know we live in a-“

“Lucky guess,” the teenager cuts her off, leaning back in his chair and looking her in the eye. He puts his ‘receptionist voice’ back on. “I’m afraid we don’t provide any internet facilities, but I can point you in the right direction to find one; the nearest village library is approximately-“

Dan’s mother cuts him off with an exasperated sigh. “But what if I want to make a call, then?”

“Calls are easier; we have a telephone box to your right – you can see it from this window,” he nods over to the window nearest the door. “Fifty pence per call.”

“Oh,” she says, and Dan can tell she’s slightly embarrassed. “Well, thank you.”

“Not a problem,” the receptionist smiles. “Is there anything else I can do for you while you’re here?”

“Well, we’re new to the campsite and-… well, we only just arrived so we might be back down here if we need help,” she giggles humourlessly. “We aren’t experienced campers; we’re we’ve only really come here because of _him_ , so-” she jerks her head down to the general direction of where Dan’s standing, and he blushes furiously.

“Oh, really?” the receptionist raises his eyebrows at Dan, eyeing him up and down judgingly. Dan glares back, hating the attention.

“Yeah, it’s his birthday, and we thought-… y’know, why not pop out of the city for a while?” she shrugs. “It’s nice to get away from it all.”

“You must’ve driven for _miles_ ,” he says, and she nods.

“Well, _he_ wanted to come, so-…” Dan resents the way she’s referring to him as nothing more than ‘he’, but he doesn’t do much other than raise his eyebrows wordlessly in response, keeping his eyes to the floor.

“Stargazers, are you?” he asks casually. Dan’s ears prick up, and he snaps his eyes up from his shoes immediately.

Dan’s mother frowns cluelessly. “Sorry?”

He waves her away dismissively. “Thought not.”

Dan glances at her in protest. _He’s_ a stargazer – well, if there were actual stars to gaze at, he would be. If staring up into the ginger sky of his city nights, accurately estimating and joining up where the constellations would be sitting behind the pollution if he could actually _see_ them counts, then he’s a stargazer.

But his mother wouldn’t know that, of course; she isn’t interested. She just wants these next two weeks over and done with as quickly as possible so they can return back to the city’s safety of full bar signal and wifi everywhere.

He doesn’t reckon Liam’s going to be too pleased when he finds out about the no wifi situation, although in all fairness Dan’s mother _had_ warned him.

“Well, if you _were_ into that kind-of stuff, you’d certainly get your money’s worth here,” the receptionist shrugs, pulling out a map. “The stargazing field’s just here, which is less than a two minute walk away from the campsite,” he points to the spot of green on the map. Dan cranes his neck in order to try and steal a glance. “Nearly every night you’ll get a great view, so-…” he cuts himself off with a shrug. “It might be something to consider, I don’t know. People like it round here,” he fixes them both with a false smile, but Dan’s too intrigued to smile back. He needs to go there – he doesn’t care if it’s a matter of sneaking out at night, and to be honest he doesn’t know how it can be anything else considering his family’s lack of patience – if he tries to stargaze with them, they’d probably give it a total of three minutes in the field before he’d hear the dreaded ‘right, we’ve seen enough of this, let’s go to bed’ from his mother.

No, he thinks. He’ll go alone.

“Oh,” Dan’s mother glances disinterestedly at the paper, before flashing the receptionist a false smile. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” he nods, glancing back to his computer screen. “Is that everything, then?”

“For now, I think so,” she continues smiling, and Dan reckons all this false politeness must be giving her cheeks the greatest workout ever. “Thanks again,” she begins to turn for the door.

“Enjoy your stay,” the receptionist calls back, not looking up from his computer screen.

Dan dithers by the doorway, before tiptoeing back up to the desk and snatching the map on the counter before the receptionist can realise his mother hadn’t even taken it. He decides he’s going to that stargazing field tonight.

When he takes it, he carefully studies whichever green blob the receptionist had specified was the stargazing field, following his mother out of the door and over to the half-pitched tents they’d left his father and brother with.

The black-haired teenager looks up from his computer screen this time.

-

Phil’s had worse customers, he guesses. He always finds country-rooted people easier to deal with than those of city roots, but even for a city-based family, they weren’t _that_ tragic. He wouldn’t be overly surprised if he never sees that family again, actually; they’ll either be locked in that phone box making call-after-call or down at the library glued to the computers with free wifi. He _knows_ city people – being in the middle of where it’s all happening, they can’t go a day without checking their phones, can’t miss any social event, can’t bear to turn down a party invitation, can’t-

Oh god, his stomach tightens. _Joe’s Party._

He pushes his phone further away – being the lazy little sod he is, the further up the desk it is, the less tempting it is to get up from his chair to go and check for any texts. There’s no point torturing himself; he just needs to find a distraction a little more engaging than making sure a moving line of pixels on his screen don’t touch the walls of the game.

He ends up shutting the computer down – there’s nothing to do on it other than upgrade from snake to solitaire, and he if there’s anything insulting he can think of right now, it’s playing a card game _specifically designed_ for lonely people. He leaves the information desk (who’s going to visit now?) and goes to the kitchen in the main cabin in search for some kind of pasta alternative.

Once he’s finished raiding the back of the fridge and the cupboards, he glares at the remains of the food – a tin of baked beans and three slices of stale bread.

He’s fed up. He’s fed up of being lonely, he’s fed up of having to politely serve narrow-minded campers who can’t fucking think for themselves, and he’s fed up of being hungry.

He never thought he’d say this, but he can’t _wait_ until his parents get back.

-

Dan’s surprised they managed to get the tent up without any family deaths occurring. While he and his mother had gone, Liam had already claimed over half of the tent they’re meant to be sharing, spreading his sleeping bag and pillows and magazines and other sources of entertainment out as much as possible, his justification being “ _you should’ve put your stuff in first – I’ve claimed this, Dan, it’s mine now”_ and leaving his older brother with the tiniest sliver of the tent right at the edge; a space Dan could barely fit his _leg_ in, never-mind the rest of him.

Dan eventually gives up with him – he’d rather sleep _outside_ than share a tent with _that_ twat of a brother. He briefly wonders whether that receptionist guy would know of any places to get camping facilities, but he’s too shy to go back and ask. His mum had already embarrassed him enough in front of strangers for one day, and he’d rather not be smirked at again.

In all honesty, as much as he knows his mum isn’t exactly the easiest customer to deal with at the best of times; whether it be in a supermarket or a campsite in the middle of nowhere, but he didn’t particularly like that guy’s attitude. He’s very good at detecting the falseness in people’s smiles, and the expressions the teenager had flashed in their direction had rang alarm bells. He knows the way you force a smile as opposed to let it be a natural thing, likewise to false versus genuine laughing, and politeness. That guy’s entire _attitude_ had raised his suspicions, to come to think of it.

He doesn’t know if he can face the information centre again.

Sure, it might, and most likely is all in his head; perhaps the receptionist really _did_ mean well and he’s just reading too much into everything like he always does.

But he knows a fake smile here, a false laugh there, when he sees one – he’s been so familiar with them himself he can barely remember the last time any smile of his was _genuine_.

-

Night begins to fall, and Phil hasn’t seen much more of that family throughout the day.

He’s certainly _heard_ them; when he’d sat on the kitchen table eating baked beans out of the tin, their domestic arguments had made great lunchtime entertainment for him. In fact, he’d been observing them and the other city-based family from his window nearly all day, so enthralled in how they behave in such an alien environment he hadn’t felt the need to boot the computer back up or check his phone once. Their puzzling over how the hell you’re meant to light a campfire (they’d nearly resorted to the rubbing-sticks-together method) had been _far_ more amusing than snake ever could be, and it had actually lifted his spirits a little.

Laughing at other people’s struggles. He can’t tell if that’s sadistic or not.

Maybe he’s past caring.

He locks up the main cabin for the night and begins strolling around the site to do a quick spot-check before he goes off-duty. He fills up a bucket and spills water over the glowing embers of the lit campfire the family in the tent to the far left had forgotten to put out, picks up several empty crisp packets and various other rubbish– (fucking pigs, is the bin less than two metres away from their tent too much of a trek?) and picks up a map up off the grass. He wonders if it belongs to that boy with the annoying mother, and as he whirls around to make for the bin again, he hesitates, because sure, it could just be discarded, but what if he’d dropped it? He could be wondering where it is. Fuck, he doesn’t know. Maybe he’ll just put it to one side, and-

“Is that my map?” a voice whispers from behind his shoulder. Phil jumps, spinning around, his heart thudding with the shock. It’s that brown-haired kid from earlier.

He’s looking up at him, his almond stare a cross between hard and timid, almost as if he’s stuck between trying to look like a tough, city boy without a single care about anything, but simultaneously speaking with a crack in his voice as if he’s terrified Phil’s about to beat him up at any given moment for having the nerve to even _think_ about talking to him.

It’s quite cute, Phil thinks – he’d always found it particularly strange watching the deeply urban-rooted folk dissolve into lost, scared souls the minute a ‘ _Tesco_ ’ is no longer in sight.

Phil glances down at the map himself, which is slightly crumpled. “I guess it must be,” he hands it back to him. “Good job I didn’t throw it away, wasn’t it?”

The boy doesn’t respond, he’s too busy squinting down at the map and trying to make out words in the dim light of the moon. Phil watches him.

“Up that way-…” he sighs, pointing over the boy’s shoulder. “Turn right at the first exit.”

 _Wow_ , he thinks to himself. He should consider getting a full-time job as a Sat Nav.

“Thanks, I-…” the boy pauses, turning back around with narrowed eyes, “wait-… how did you know I was looking for the stargazing field?”

Phil shrugs in exactly the same manner he’d done when questioned ‘ _how did you know we lived in the city_?’. “Lucky guess,” he answers, flashing the boy a small grin, before disappearing nudging his feet off towards the direction of his cabin, opposite to where the boy’s headed. He knows he’d already used that excuse on his family once today, but he figures it’s better than the truth – that it’s just so _bloody obvious oh my god you city people don’t realise how transparent you are_.

He keeps his mouth shut, making sure he doesn’t actually say that bit.

The boy frowns, fixing him with a weird cross between a smile, nod, and just general expression of ‘ _you are fucking weird stay away from me’_ , before backing away in the direction of wherever it was Phil had directed him.

“Happy stargazing,” Phil calls after him. “You don’t look as if you’ve ever _seen_ one before, to be honest.”

The boy’s shoulders sag a little, and he stops in his tracks. “I haven’t, really,” he mumbles after a while. “Not _proper_ ones outside books and movies, anyway.”

Phil hesitates – he can’t tell if he feels sorry for him or not. “You’re in for a treat tonight, then.”

The boy glances towards the dark forest and suddenly turns around, his expression nervous. ‘”Are you not coming?”

Phil makes a face. “Why should I?” he nods up at the sky. “I see this _everyday_.”

“Oh,” the boy gulps, his eyes averting quickly towards the metres and metres of dark forest he’s going to have to face alone. “Are you sure? I mean, it’s-…” he takes a deep breath, gulping again.

Phil narrows his eyes. “I’m pretty sure, yep,”

“Oh,” he says again, nibbling his lip. After a couple of seconds, he sucks in another breath and turns his back on Phil, edging towards the path. “I guess I’ll just-…” he nervously wrings his hands. Phil can hear his mutters to himself from where he’s standing. “So through here, and-… wait, through _there_ wasn’t it? Then up to the-… the path, turn right-… or was it left? Fuck, wait-… no it was right I think-… then-“ his voice is shaking already, and Phil watches cautiously as the darkness begins to swallow the fading figure.

His original point still stands – he knows how shit-scared of the countryside these city folk get. As soon as they’re in an environment with less than four people in sight at a time, they begin to panic; their fears of the dark (drowned out by the artificial glow of the streetlights back in their homes) and of being alone (which the dense populations obviously take care of) become frighteningly apparent. Even watching this guy makes Phil wonder how on _earth_ he could believe his assumptions had been ‘lucky guesses’. The only think ‘lucky’ about _that_ , is the fact this guy doesn’t have to experience this horrible isolation every single day of his fucking life.

City folk don’t realise how lucky they are, and Phil envies them.

It’s a two-way thing, of course. The city _terrifies_ Phil, sure, but he’d rather be there than here, any day. _Any day_.

He gulps, watching after the boy as he stands awkwardly beside the forest, obviously wondering how on earth he’s going to conquer this alone. It looks as if either he’s forgotten the instructions Phil had given him, or he’s still plucking up the courage needed to face the darkness. Probably _both_.

Phil gulps. Oh _god,_ he can’t just leave him there; he’s obviously _shitting_ himself. He wouldn’t usually be the first to go running after some camper to make sure they get through a forest – a very uninteresting, lonely forest, but still a _forest_ to someone born in a city, and he’d seen the flicker of fear in his eyes. He’d seen the way he’d tried to conceal it in front of Phil; he’d tried to make an effort to seem tough and independent in front of him, completely naïve to the fact Phil’s seen it all before.

No, he doesn’t think there’s any way he can go back inside knowing he’s still out there. He’ll probably get totally and utterly lost without the aid of a map, and only Phil’s vague instructions to go by.

Besides, Phil thinks, feeling the gravel of the campsite crunching underneath his feet. Had it been the other way around, he knows he certainly couldn’t face a busy city high street or catching a bus alone. He’d make an effort to conceal the fact he’d be practically dying inside, but he’d want someone of city origins there. Just in case.

Like he said – it’s a two-way thing. This boy needs someone from the country, someone who’s used to the isolation.

“Hey,” Phil catches up with him, and the boy jumps suddenly, whirling around and staring at Phil through eyes bright with fear.

“Oh,” he exhales shakily. “It’s only you.”

“It’s only me,” Phil shrugs.

The boy gulps. “What are you doing here? I thought you said-“

“I was just wondering whether you needed any help getting to the field?” Phil asks, putting on his best ‘son of the owner’ voice.

The boy frowns, his head obviously filled with _‘how the fuck do you know how terrified I am out here oh my god are you actually psychic it’s beginning to scare me’_. “Er-…” he shrugs. “Yeah. Sure. I-… thanks.”

“No problem,” Phil says, making for the forest and beckoning the teenager to follow. “It’s just up here.”

He takes a deep breath, shuts his eyes, and finally runs into the forest after him.

They crunch their way through fallen leaves, flimsy branches and overgrown plants. The brown-eyed boy stays fairly close-by to Phil, jumping at nearly every rustle and snap.

“So, er-…” the boy begins. “I thought you didn’t want to come out tonight?”

Phil shrugs, keeping his eyes to the ground. “Changed my mind.”

The boy nods, still very on-edge. “Ah.”

They continue to walk, Phil keeping one pace ahead in order to lead the way, and he can’t help but notice how pretty the forest looks tonight. The further they walk, the lighter it gets – the moonlight struggles through gaps in the branches and treetops clustered above their heads, painting the woodland floor with pools of silver. He smiles softly to himself; he was right to come out tonight – it’s a full moon, and the absence of any kind of torch or lantern isn’t ever too much of a problem on nights like these – the light from the sky is always sufficient enough guidance.

“Looks nice, doesn’t it?” he muses thoughtfully, gesturing to their hazy surroundings. Dan gulps, but nods.

“Yeah,” he stutters, his eyes scouring the forest desperately.

“Relax,” Phil sighs after a silence. “You’re _okay_.”

The boy frowns at him, puzzled. Phil rolls his eyes again.

“You think it isn’t obvious you’re scared shitless by the forest?” Phil tests, raising an eyebrow.

“Shut up,” the boy mumbles, keeping his eyes glued to his shoes. “I’m not used to it.”

“I know,” Phil says. “I get what it must be like,”

“No you don’t,” he mutters.

“How would _you_ know?” Phil turns to him. “Who are you to say I haven’t been dealing with you city-rooted families in an environment you aren’t used to for my entire life?” he smirks. “I’ve seen it all before. I know what you guys are like.”

He doesn’t know if that’s patronising or not – he didn’t mean for it to be, but it’s better than the ‘ _you’re all the same’_ remark he managed to keep _inside_ his thoughts.

The boy gulps again, his breath shaking as another twig snaps and it seems as if they’re the only two people for _miles_. He doesn’t bother arguing – this guy seems to know his stuff.

“Your entire life, did you say?” he mumbles.

Phil nods. “I grew up here.”

The boy frowns curiously. “Here?”

“Seventeen years,” Phil nods, gesturing to the site, and he can sense the disbelief in the boy’s almond eyes at the thought of someone being born and bred in an environment with minimal civilisation, minimal electricity, minimal _everything_ apart from miles and miles of surrounding green. “It’s what I’m used to, all this.”

“Wow,” the boy mumbles, his voice small. “I could _never_ live here.”

“I don’t know how I’ve managed it, to be honest,” Phil sighs.

“Does it ever get lonely?” the boy frowns. “The nearest village is over, what, three hours away, was it?”

“Three hours,” Phil nods in confirmation. “The nearest store, which is only this tiny little shop at the end of some road is forty-five minutes away,” he shrugs. “There are no _Tesco_ things here; let me tell you.”

“Tesco things,” the boy smirks, before studying Phil half-judgingly. “You don’t sound as if you’ve ever set foot in a supermarket in your life, to be honest.”

“I could say that about you and forests,” Phil raises his eyebrow, and the boy drops his gaze to the floor.

“I’m not used to it,” he mutters.

“I’m not used to _supermarkets_ ,” Phil adds. “What’s up with those self-service thingies? The first time that scary lady had a go at me for not putting the stuff in the ‘bagging area’ I nearly _cried_.”

“The scary lady,” the boy sniggers. “It’s _pre-recorded,_ you do realise? It’s not just some lady behind the screen watching over what you’re doing.”

“Which is what I didn’t know until I was _told_ ,” Phil shrugs. “You should’ve _seen_ some of the looks I got from everyone. I knew what they were thinking – ‘classic country boy, can’t complete the most basic of everyday tasks, barely even knows what a scanner _is’_ , but,” he shrugs. “I’m just used to those tiny little grocery shops where someone does the scanny-beepy thing _for_ you.”

“There’s no way I could live like that,” the boy shudders. “So, you don’t even have _internet_ up here?”

“Well, we kind-of do, but,” Phil shrugs. “We get this USB stick every month, I think it has like two gigabytes on it, but-“

“ _Two gigabytes_?!” the boy exclaims. “That couldn’t even last me a _day_ , let alone a _month_.”

Phil shrugs. “There isn’t any other use for it other than answering emails and updating our website.”

The boy stares at him as if he’s absolutely insane, and Phil smirks. “Country folk really _are_ another species.”

“As are city folk,” Phil adds.

“What do you do during the day, though?” the boy frowns.

Phil shrugs. “Sit at the information centre. Try to get phone signal. Talk to campers. Paint, sometimes. Play snake if I get on the computer.”

The boy can’t hold back his laugh. “Snake? What is this; the _nineties_?”

“It might as well be,” Phil sighs.

“What do you do at night?” the boy frowns.

“This, usually,” Phil gestures to the forest. “If there’s no-one at the stargazing field, I’ll usually stay there for the night ‘till I fall asleep.”

The boy pauses. “I’m not intruding, am I?”

Phil snorts. “You’ve come _all this way_ to go stargazing, and you’re concerned about being an inconvenience to some local boy? A local who gets to see them every single night?”

The boy only picks up on one point. “ _Every single night_? Like, for real?”

“Pretty much,” Phil says.

“Fuck,” the boy breathes out, his voice slightly pained. He can’t even comprehend what it must be like to have this as an _everyday_ thing.

“I could sit under them for twenty-four hours every day, and I’d never get bored of them. I find that every time you look at the sky, you always notice something new. Something you previously hadn’t seen, or paid attention to.”

“Wow,” the boy widens his eyes. “You seem to know a lot about them, too.”

“Too?” Phil frowns. “Just a couple of minutes ago you were telling me how you’ve barely seen a star in your life.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t read about them every night,” the boy replies.

“Ah,” Phil nods.

“Go on,” the boy’s eyes flicker to Phil for half a second. “Test me.”

“Since when did this turn into a quiz?” Phil narrows his eyes. “This isn’t _Who Wants To Be A Millionaire_.” 

The boy scoffs. “Of _course_ it isn’t; there’s no way I’d get enough signal out here to phone a friend.”

Phil giggles softly. “And there’s no audience to speak of, I guess,” he briefly glances around at their surroundings. “There’s no prize involved either, unless an extra supply of firewood sounds appealing to you.”

“I don’t need firewood,” the boy shrugs. “I don’t really need anything except for this stargazing field thing.”

“That’s a good job, then – there’s fuck all else to do here.”

“I gathered,” the boy replies, giving Phil a wry smile.

He’s not bad, for a city boy.

He’s not bad at all, actually, city boy or not – Phil reckons it’s the first time since as far back as he can remember that he’s actually enjoyed a conversation with a camper. He’s used to taking them to the field then trusting they make their own way back to the site, but he finds part of him actually _wants_ to be here; for the stars, for an obvious one, and for another, this guy seems pretty interesting. He wants to keep talking to him.

“What’s your name, sorry?” the boy asks the exact same question Phil was planning on breaking the silence with.

“Phil. Phil Lester,” Phil says.

“Ah,” the boy’s face lights up with realisation. “That’s why this camp is called Lester’s, right?”

“Mhm,” Phil nods. “Family-run business.”

They walk in a short silence until Phil decides it’s his turn to ask.

“What’s your name, then?” he eyes the boy up and down.

“Dan,” the boy replies. “Well, technically _Daniel_ if you’re a teacher or I’m in trouble for something, but-…” he shrugs. “Dan to you, hopefully.”

“Dan,” Phil repeats, nodding slowly and studying the boy carefully. It suits him, he decides.

“How much further is there to go?” Dan asks after a couple of quiet minutes. “I think I might have underestimated the scale of that map.”

“Not that much further,” Phil replies. “See that opening, there?” he points over to the widening gap in the trees a couple of footsteps away from them. Dan squints in the darkness, but he can eventually make it out. He nods.

“M’kay,” Dan says.

He’s still a little shaken up from the forest – Phil might have lived here all his life, but how can he be certain a man-eating bear isn’t lurking in the trees about to pounce on the two of them? It’s dark – _anything_ could be lurking anywhere. He hates the unknown. He hates it, hates it, _hates it_. He should’ve brought some kind of torch.

“Hey,” Phil notices his tension, “it’s not far, now.”

Dan gulps, but nods. It’ll be fine once they get to the field, he knows it.

Phil knows he made the right decision coming out here. Not only for Dan’s protection, but for himself.

Since speaking to this boy, Joe’s party hadn’t even _briefly_ crossed his mind.

-

Phil stares at the boy standing beside him, the grass tickling their legs and the gentle breeze combing through his hair. For a city guy, terrified of the countryside and the dark, he really does know his stuff.

“I always expected Taurus to be smaller than that,” he mumbles, keeping his gaze up at the sky. “I don’t know why.”

“It probably _was_ considerably smaller on your stellarscope,” Phil says. “Did you bring it with you?”

“Yeah, but,” Dan sighs. “It’s all the way back in my tent, and if I wake my brother up, I’ll probably get _beheaded_.”

“Sharing a tent with him, are you?” Phil gives him a sympathetic smile.

“Barely,” Dan rolls his eyes. “He’s taken up most of it. I think I’m left with about one percent of the ground his stuff can’t stretch to.”

“Fun,” Phil widens his eyes. “I can only _imagine_ how much fun that must be.”

“Do you have any siblings?” Dan asks. Phil shakes his head sadly.

“Nope. It’s just been me.”

Dan scoffs. “Oh god, consider yourself lucky – I’d give _anything_ to be an only child.”

“Don’t overestimate it,” Phil warns. “It might be annoying, but-…” he gestures to their empty surroundings. “Sometimes I’d give anything to have a sibling.”

“Good point,” Dan goes to chuckle, but that’s actually pretty sad. He throws Phil a sympathetic glance. “Sorry to hear that, I mean-… that must kinda suck.”

“It does,” Phil mumbles, but he returns the glance gratefully. “But it’s what I’m used to, I guess.”

“It must be lonely, though,” Dan sighs.

“Trust me,” Phil shakes his head at the grass beneath them. “It doesn’t _get_ much lonelier than this.”

Dan’s shoulders sag, and he’s suddenly surprised by the urge he has to hug this lonely country boy standing beside him. Loneliness, being alone and isolation are all featured pretty high up on his list of ‘top fears’, and although this guy’s evidently coping with it a lot better than Dan ever could, it still doesn’t make it _nice_ to deal with.

“You have friends though, right?” he frowns.

“Technically,” Phil shrugs again, “although they’re all a three hour drive away from me, so it isn’t exactly a matter of ‘popping round the block to see your best friend’,” he pauses. “I was meant to go to a party tonight, actually.”

“How come you’re not?” Dan asks, studying the black-haired boy carefully.

“My parents are off to Scotland for a few days, so no-one could drive me down,” Phil explains. “They left me in charge.”

“In charge?” Dan repeats. “Of what; _everything_?”

Phil glances at him. “It’s hardly much of a demanding task, running this place. I’ve done it alone heaps of times before. It’s generally just a matter of explaining the most basic of things to middle-aged women,” Dan drops his gaze to the floor, embarrassed on behalf of his mother, “and telling people how to get to the nearest shop. Oh, and lending people your spare camping equipment with no expectations of getting them back.”

“And leading people through dark woods, of course,” Dan smirks.

“Isn’t it worth it, though?” Phil raises an eyebrow, his gaze tilting back up to the stars.

Dan doesn’t argue with that – it certainly fucking _is_. He throws his gaze up to the sky along with Phil, and reads the years and years of visual history written in celestial life across the northern hemisphere. They’re both silenced by the view (despite seeing it nearly every day of his life since birth, it still overwhelms Phil a little), and without the white noise of the city Dan’s grown up with, he can’t tell if he’s more overwhelmed by the view, or the strange absence of sound consuming the atmosphere.

Dan has to break the silence with a small chuckle before it becomes unbearable for him. He fixes his gaze back on Taurus.

“Isn’t it strange how what we’re looking at, isn’t actually there anymore?” he mumbles, mainly to himself, but Phil catches it.

“Visual history,” Phil replies just as quietly – they’re the only two standing in the field, but they’re whispering as if they’re in danger of waking someone up. “We only see the stars as they looked when the light now reaching our eyes left them,” he tries to align his gaze with Dan. “Are you looking at Taurus?”

Dan nods.

“Do you know where Aldebaran is?” Phil tests. Dan did invite him to test him on his star knowledge, after all.

“Looking at it right now,” Dan scoffs. “It’s sixty-five light years away, isn’t it?”

Phil stares at him.

He’d just taken the words from his mouth; he certainly wasn’t expecting his city-limited knowledge to extend _that_ far. “And it looks to our eyes how it appeared sixty-five years ago?” he adds tentatively.

Dan nods. “But even sixty-five years ago, that wasn’t how it _actually_ was. You’d have to go back another sixty-five years in order to see that.”

“Jesus,” Phil chuckles. “Science is weird.”

“Time is weirder,” Dan adds with a sigh.

There’s another silence, and this time Phil breaks it.

“I feel like you think about this a lot,” he says quietly.

“I have to, don’t I?” Dan shrugs. Phil looks at him inquisitively. “I can’t see them, I can’t escape at night to go and spend hours under them like you can. My thoughts are all I have,” Dan sighs.

Phil gulps. “When did you first see the stars?”

“On a field trip to Westwood coast,” Dan replies. “Even then, it was pretty urban and built-on, so a couple of planets and the brightest stars were the best I could get,” he throws his gaze back up to the sky. “ _This_ is the first time I’ve seen them properly.”

“Is it what you expected?” Phil raises an eyebrow.

“Better,” Dan breathes quickly. “Fuck, I just-…” he shakes his head in disbelief. “I just can’t believe this is _real_. I can’t believe the sky _actually looks_ like this in some parts of the country. This is actually _above_ us,” he hesitates, reflecting back on Phil’s ‘visual history’ remark. “Or-… well, at least, it was at some point,” he corrects himself.

Phil gives him a half-smile. “I’ve never seen the sky any different to this, to be honest.”

Dan stares at him. “Seriously?” his voice drops.

Phil shrugs. “It never really rains, here. Or clouds over – because we’re on such a big hill, we’re nearly above cloud level,” he glances at Dan. “This is a stargazing hotspot for a _reason_ , you know.”

Dan’s silenced, his mouth slightly open with disbelief. “So-… you could just go out at any time of the night knowing the stars will be there?”

“Pretty much,” Phil sighs wistfully.

“Fuck,” Dan huffs out a sigh of disbelief, “what I’d give to have the stars on my doorstep.”

“It’s nice,” Phil comments carefully. “But-…”

Dan frowns. “But what?”

“There’s a price,” he says, shrugging. “You get the stars, sure, but with that, comes the loneliness. The isolation,” repressed thoughts about Joe’s party begin creeping back into his mind, but he does his best to blindly shove them out of his consciousness. “Like-… I love the stars. I appreciate being able to see them every single night, but-…” he shrugs. “It’d just be nice to have someone to watch the stars _with_.”

“You have me,” Dan gulps. “For now, anyway, like-…” he cuts himself off with an awkward shrug.

Phil looks at him. “How long are you here for?”

“Two weeks, providing my family don’t go insane and kill each-other before then,” he chuckles.

“Here’s to hoping,” Phil chuckles along with him, and they both tilt their heads back up to stare at the star-studded sky above them.

-

Dan doesn’t see Phil for the majority of the next day. He scours the campsite, inadvertently checking behind tents and popping into the empty information centre every now and then in the blind hope he might bump into him, but no such luck had ensued so far.

“Daaan?” he hears a whiny voice call his name from the tent over the other side of the site. He shuts his eyes forebodingly, wanting nothing less than to talk to his fucking _brother_ right now.

“What?” he grits his teeth, spinning around and walking back in the other direction.

Liam emerges from the tent, his brown hair dishevelled and his pyjama t-shirt creased with the night’s sleep. “Do you know where mum put the cornflakes?”

“Maybe check the food hamper?” Dan replies sarcastically – he doesn’t have the time for stupid questions right now.

Liam fixes him with a steady glare. “I _have_ , for your information.”

Dan shrugs nonchalantly. “What do you want me to do about it? Just get a different cereal or something.”

Liam groans reluctantly. “But we only have _Shreddies_.”

“Not my problem,” Dan holds both his hands up, before slowly backing away.

“Where are _you_ going?” Liam eyes him up and down suspiciously.

“Away from _you_ ,” Dan replies semi-seriously, backing further away from the tent and over to the water faucet. “We need water,” he resorts to lying when Liam starts to look as if he’s going to tell on his older brother any minute. Liam rolls his eyes, but his expression softens.

Dan approaches the pipe, hesitantly filling up a couple of water bottles. He doesn’t know why – they have enough bottled water to last them a _lifetime_ , but it’s better than arguing with Liam over cereal so he’s in no hurry to switch the faucet off.

“Are you a practising waterbender, or just very intent on wasting the campsite’s facilities?” he hears a familiar voice pipe up from behind him. He jumps out of his daydream, whirling around to find Phil leaning against the pipe, raising his eyebrows down at the overflow, spilling over the bottle and soaking his hands. He hadn’t even realised.

“Oh, shit-“ Dan draws his hand away, hastily turning the pipe handle until the water stops. “I wasn’t concentrating,” he excuses shakily, wiping his wet hands on his jeans.

“Evidently,” Phil widens his eyes, frowning at the rest of the filled bottles. Dan notices him staring as he gathers them up in his arms. “You have enough there to hydrate an _army_ , nevermind a family of four” he comments.

“Better to come prepared, isn’t it?” Dan mutters, leaving out the part where he tells Phil the only reason he came here was to get away from his brother.

“If you say so,” Phil raises his eyebrows, watching Dan struggle with the armful of bottles he’s trying to carry. “Need any help with that?”

“I’m sure I can manage a couple of water bottles, thanks,” Dan mutters, but the thud on the gravel of a bottle slipping out of his arms would suggest otherwise.

Phil smirks, bending down and picking it up. “Really?” he nods towards it sceptically. Dan glares at him, and Phil rolls his eyes, taking another couple out of Dan’s arms so the amount is halved.

“Thanks,” Dan mutters so quietly Phil could’ve chosen whether he’d heard it or not

He chooses to pick up on it, and throws Dan a quick half-smile in response as they walk across the site, their arms full of bottles, wet from the residue of the overflow.

“My tent’s the green one- just there, on the far corner,” Dan nods over to it, refraining from pointing.

Phil bites back an ‘ _I know’_ , remembering Dan isn’t actually aware he can see it from his cabin.

They’d made some great breakfast entertainment this morning, though – Phil had giggled over the last of the cornflakes at the way Dan and his brother had been bickering outside of the tent. He couldn’t hear everything (although he wished he could – by the look of Dan’s face after his brother’s comebacks, he guesses great wit probably runs in the family), but what he could lipread and infer from voices muffled by distance had been enough.

He’d screwed up his face in disgust after a couple of spoonfuls, the powdery residue at the bottom of the cereal box that always spills out on the last bowl distracting him from the argument between the Howells. He’d had to bin the rest – he _hates_ cereal dust, and now, he has to admit; he’s _starving_. He’s going to have to resort to taking forty-five minutes out to go all the way to the shop at this rate just to get some lunch; as for _dinner_ , he has no idea.

As they approach the tent, Dan’s brother emerges, glaring up at the older boy.

“Took your time,” he mumbles, eyeing the water bottles suspiciously.

“We have all the time in the world,” Dan mutters, dropping them all in a heap beside the doorway of their tent.

His eyes flicker to Phil, eyeing the taller boy up and down. “Made a friend, did you?” he asks Dan while keeping his eyes locked onto the black-haired boy.

Dan throws Phil a quick warning look of uncertainty. _Are_ they friends?

“Yep,” Phil shrugs, keeping nonchalant. “He did.”

Dan releases a sigh of discreet relief, and Liam rolls his eyes.

“Whatever,” he mutters, shuffling back inside, and Dan throws him a quick “ _sorry about him_ ” glance, which Phil returns sympathetically.

Before either of them can say anything, Dan’s mother emerges from her tent in what looks like brand new walking boots the size of baguettes. Phil can’t hold back a splutter when he sees them – buying the most expensive walking equipment, a _typical_ city folk trick; she’s bound to get horrendous blisters tonight.

Phil quickly disguises his splutter with a cough, and Dan settles for silence, raising his eyebrows at his mother’s feet.

“D’you like them?” she does a little twirl. “We’re going hiking today, so I thought-“

“Hiking?” Dan looks up, making a face.

“Yes, _hiking_ ,” Dan’s mum prompts as if it’s as obvious a daily task as catching the bus back at Brightlake city. “There’s so much countryside around here, Daniel, we simply _have_ to explore it!”

“Would you like a map of the local footpaths?” Phil asks in his best voice once he’d composed himself enough to speak.

Dan’s mother fixes him with a blank expression before her memory clicks into place – it’s the receptionist. Only he looks nearly unrecognisable in a grey t-shirt and messy, unbrushed hair.

“We’d love one, thank you,” she paints on a polite smile, feeling rather embarrassed after acknowledging his presence lingering behind Dan. In all honesty, he doesn’t quite know himself what he’s doing out here after helping Dan with the water bottles, but it’s quite amusing to observe this family from closer up.

“Sure,” Phil nods. “I’ll be at the information desk,” he turns on one heel, giving Dan a sly glance before disappearing off to the cabin.

Dan turns back to his mum, watching as she straightens out her purple raincoat – another obviously new purchase. He’d seen her running around _Mountain Warehouse_ a couple of days before the trip, buying any accessories that looked even _remotely_ camping-related despite the total irrelevance; weird socks, hiking sticks, roof bars, folding trollies, beam deflectors, you name it - it’s probably in her bag.

She has just about anything except an actual knowledge or interest in the countryside, it seems. Dan knows she’s only doing this to try and keep the spirits up in the family.

“Hiking?” Dan repeats again, reluctantly flopping down on one of the fold-up chairs.

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t be like that, Daniel – you’re as bad as your _brother_.”

“Oh yeah, _he’s_ gonna be thrilled when he finds out,” Dan sarcastically mutters under his breath – if Liam had kicked up a fuss over something so stupid as the wrong cereal, he’d rather not be there for the outcome of telling him he’s about to be torn away from his Beano magazine and dragged out into the countryside to traipse along muddy paths and look at trees all day.

Dan’s mother rolls her eyes, choosing not to hear her son’s quiet remark. She stirs coffee, handing the flask to Dan’s very drained-looking father who sips it indifferently.

Dan grabs a bag of crisps – not the healthiest breakfast choice, but he doesn’t care, and one of the many bottles of water, before heading to the cabin to get the map they supposedly need. Okay, so what if he’s only going to see Phil? He’d rather converse with him than sit with his own bores of a family for another second.

Plus, of course, he really doesn’t want to sit through another one of Liam’s famous tantrums once the news is broken to him. He shudders, opening the bag of crisps and pushing a couple hungrily into his mouth. He’ll wait here until it’s over.

He reaches the information centre, biting back a smile when he catches sight in the window of the familiar black-haired figure sitting stoically behind the desk, staring at a computer screen. Dan reckons he’s probably playing Snake, or something, reflecting back on their conversation about internet usage last night.

He still can’t believe that – how can he survive daily without it? It’s only been just over twenty-four hours and Dan’s already feeling the withdrawals of not being able to check Twitter with a simple swipe of a screen.

He looks up upon the clink of the bell at the top of the door, and his eyes suddenly light up when he sees who it is. Dan – _without_ the accompaniment of any family members.

“What’s up, city boy?” Phil mumbles casually, returning his eyes back to the screen.

“Shut up,” Dan responds, but he’s smirking.

“Need a map?” Phil picks up one of the glossy leaflets, offering it to Dan. “Or a break?” he tilts his hand back, angling the map away from him.

“ _Both_ ,” Dan huffs out a sigh, shoving more crisps into his mouth. Phil flashes him a sympathetic grin.

“All ready for hiking, I see?” he eyes Dan up and down, studying his band-t-shirt-with-skinny-jeans-and-converse attire, totally inappropriate for any kind of hiking purpose, or even camping _altogether_ for that matter. Perhaps Dan should’ve taken a leaf out of his mother’s book.

He shudders, remembering her chunky boots. Perhaps not.

“Shut up,” Dan repeats, offering him a crisp.

Phil shakes his head at the green bag. “Salt & Vinegar – _ew.”_

“You don’t like _Salt & Vinegar_?” Dan stares at him as if he’d just declared he doesn’t like _chocolate cake_ , taking another bite.

“It tastes like shit,” Phil wrinkles his nose as the familiar vinegar-y aroma begins escaping from the packet until he can smell it. “I’m more of a Ready Salted kind-of guy, to be honest.”

“How simplistic of you,” Dan mutters sarcastically, pinching at the crisp crumbs gathered up in the bottom corners of the pack.

Phil throws him a smirk, carding through old leaflets and paperwork piles before he whips something out, handing it to Dan without looking up.

“What’s this?” Dan takes it, frowning.

“A map,” Phil says, looking up when Dan flashes him a confused glance. This doesn’t look very footpath-orientated. “One _you_ might find particularly useful.”

“I came here for the footpa-“

“Open it,” Phil cuts him off. Dan does, and he’s almost immediately silenced when he unfolds the paper and reads the white writing against dark colours, indicating to an array of joined dots and compass-like scales in the corner of the paper.

It’s a star map.

“ _Phil_ ,” Dan scoffs in an attempt at nonchalance, but he can’t hide his appreciative grin as he studies the Plough and the small write-up beside it, a short paragraph about the Great Bear or something.

“There’s more where that came from,” Phil’s voice pipes up from underneath the desk as a hand emerges, slapping a couple more leaflets down in front of Dan. He stares at them, and bold titles of “ _How To Read Our Night Sky_ ” and “ _The Stargazer’s Guide To Constellations”_ stare back at him. “We have so many down he- fuck I didn’t even know we _owned_ this,” he pulls out what looks like a stellarscope, placing it face-up on the desk.

“Good thing I won’t have to disturb my brother this evening, then,” Dan smirks, picking up the stellarscope and studying it attentively. Phil looks up on Dan’s remark.

“Your brother seems-… interesting,” he says, tossing Dan another couple of leaflets about “ _Lester’s – the no.1 Stargazing Hotspot as of 2009_ ” before leaning back on his chair.

“Don’t,” Dan shuts his eyes. “The main reason I came here was for a break from _him_.”

“I thought as much,” Phil smiles wryly, his eyes flickering to the footpath map. “Don’t forget this, by the way” he picks it up, wedging it in Dan’s arms along with the rest of the paper he’s already been given.

“Thanks, Dan smirks, tucking pretty much the only thing his family had sent him here for into his back pocket.

“So-…” Phil begins conversationally, whirling around on his revolving chair. “Hiking, huh?”

Dan groans, shutting his eyes again.

“What’s that look for?” Phil frowns. “Your mum was right; the countryside around here is _beautiful_ – aside the stars, it’s the only other thing this campsite is famous for-“

“I’m sure it is,” Dan mutters, his tone bittered slightly. “It’s my _family_ that’s the problem.”

Phil widens his eyes, choosing not to comment on that.

“Well, if this morning’s anything to go by, then _those_ should keep you entertained for a couple of hours,” Phil nods to Dan’s full hands.

“It’s broad daylight,” Dan smirks towards the star maps, but his expression softens. “Thanks for these, though. It’s-… they’re-“ he shrugs awkwardly. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Phil waves the appreciation away. “Don’t mention it. I know how bored you city folk get out here. You need _something_ to keep you occupied.”

“I have my iPod,” Dan comments, but he doesn’t take his eyes off of the star maps.

“Seems like you’ll need it,” Phil raises his eyebrows. “Remind me later to lend you my charger.”

Dan frowns. “I have one.”

“But am I right in assuming you don’t have an _adapter_ for the plugs here?” Phil raises an eyebrow. “The power sockets are different to the ones you have at home – we’re on a power meter here, we don’t use the mains electricity.”

Dan’s expression falters. “Oh.”

“So, remind me to give you mine, okay?” Phil retracts. Dan frowns for a second, before nodding.

“Er- okay,” he agrees, wondering why Phil’s being so weirdly helpful. “Thanks.”

Phil’s grin warms. “Just doing my job.”

Oh, Dan remembers. That’s why.

-

The rest of the day follows in a pretty uneventful fashion. Phil gives up on stale Kit-Kats and resorts to going down to the shop after all, leaving a note of “ _had to go food shopping. took the credit card. sorry – phil x”_ on the table in his scrawled handwriting for when his parents return. If they return _today_ , that is.

They shouldn’t be mad at him anyway; he hasn’t bought that much, to be honest – surely they’d rather be £30 worse off than come home to a corpse of their starved son on the floor, right? Phil smirks to himself, turning back to the computer and grabbing another handful of Haribos. He hasn’t exactly been shopping _sensibly_ , but at least he has enough junk food to keep him alive until he isn’t in the cabin all by himself anymore.

He pads around the cabin until evening falls, unusually restless, completing pointless and unimportant tasks in order to keep himself occupied away from the computer – if he starts up another game of Snake, he’s pretty sure he’ll go _mad_.

He’s in the kitchen straightening the cookbooks when there’s a small knock at the window. He shuts his eyes sighing.

“For the last time, Mrs. Peters, we’re out of pasta,” Phil calls without looking behind him to see who it is. He bites his tongue, holding back from adding the ‘ _bearing in mind this is a kitchen, not a fucking tuck shop’_ that his inner consciousness mutters.

There’s a muffled chuckle at his response, and Phil whirls around at the sound of the voice – it definitely doesn’t belong to a forty-year-old woman.

A brown-eyed face peeks out from between the small plants kept behind the windowsill, and Phil stops when he recognises the boy behind the aloe vera leaves. _Dan_.

“Dan?” Phil frowns, sliding off of the worktop and approaching the windowsill to make sure it’s definitely him, and not his similar-looking younger brother.

Dan tries speaking, but the glass between them makes his speech incoherent – Phil can’t make out more than ‘ _information_ ’, and ‘ _sorry_ ’.

“Wait, I’ll-“ Phil cuts himself off, giving up on talking and instead beckoning Dan over to the door.

“Hi,” Dan says, rather awkwardly.

“Come in,” Phil jerks his head over his shoulder, staying by the door frame and giving the campsite a quick once-over to ensure it’s Peters-family-free before shutting the door behind him. Dan scuttles in on Phil’s command, not really knowing what to do or where to stand – he hadn’t actually expected an invite in.

It isn’t until Phil hops onto the worktop, shooting Dan an expectant glance, he remembers what he’s here for.

“Sorry, I-“ Dan stammers. “You weren’t in the information centre, and, well, I just…” he shrugs. “I saw you in here, and-“

“Phone charger?” Phil guesses with a raised eyebrow. Dan nods bashfully.

“Stay here,” Phil disappears through a door Dan hadn’t even noticed, leaving him standing in the middle of the kitchen to observe his surroundings.

Everything’s distinctly wooden – from pine cabinets to oak floorboards to mahogany furniture, it’s a step over from the silver gleam of white tiles and marble surfaces Dan’s used to back in his own kitchen at home. The ceiling hangs low, and from it dangle three solitary light bulbs, framed with simple cream lampshades much unlike the dazzling spotlights studded into Dan’s high kitchen ceiling. He follows the trail of wires from the lightbulbs down, and suddenly realises what Phil had been talking about; they lead to a multi-socket extension connected to several small black cubes Dan assumes are the ‘adapters’. Out of curiosity, Dan lets his eyes follow the wires through the wall and outside until they connect to some kind of green box a couple of footsteps away from the kitchen window, labelled with black and yellow caution signs. They really _don’t_ use mains electricity.

A couple of minutes tick past, and Dan finds himself pacing curiously around this little kitchen, wincing at every creak from the floorboards underfoot with every step he takes. He studies neat little rows of spice jars by the sink, listens to the steady drips from the kitchen tap drumming rhythmically against the washing-up bowl (by the looks of it, they don’t own a dishwasher), and the lines of terraced cupboards overhead. He wonders what it must be like to clean, wash, cook and eat all in this tiny little space. He wonders if Phil’s ever seen a _real_ kitchen before.

He jumps when the door clicks open, interrupting his deep train of thought, and he looks up, giving Phil a grateful nod when he sees the black cube and a wire in his hand. Phil hands it over benevolently. “You can plug it in there, if you like.”

“Oh,” Dan swallows, differentiating his glances between the sockets and the door. He hadn’t planned to stay – he’d only been ordered to ‘go straight there and back’. “I… well, the thing is, I-“ Phil frowns. “I need to go for dinner, and-” he throws Phil an apologetic glance. “Well, I only popped in here to collect it because you weren’t at the information de-“

“Oh no, that’s… that’s fine,” Phil nods, etching on an expression of understanding to disguise the sinking feeling that comes over him. “You go.”

“Sorry, I…” Dan shrugs, not really knowing what to say. He handles the adapter thoughtfully, before there’s a call from outside. It’s muffled, but not unrecognisably so, and Dan’s head snaps up.

“Daniel?”

“Coming,” Dan calls back reluctantly with a sigh, lifting his head up again to look at Phil. “I’ll see you later?” he says, but it’s more of a question than anything else.

Phil forces another smile. “Sure.”

Dan gives him another awkward smile, before turning around and making for the door, tugging the handle and slipping outside. Phil leans on the worktop, keeping his eyes glued to the back of Dan’s head as he watches the boy leave the cabin and walk further and further away, disappearing into his tent along with the rest of his family.

Phil sighs once he’s out of sight, turning away from the window and back to the small kitchen, unusually tidy. He’d better start cooking something too – he hasn’t eaten since mid-afternoon and now it’s well into the evening.

To think he was just about to invite Dan to eat with him, he sighs to himself, opening a new pack of pasta and pouring it out onto the measuring scales. Looks like he’ll be cooking alone, spending another dinner alone, and eating alone.

Alone, alone, alone. What’s new?

-

“What the hell is that?” Dan screws up his face at the unidentifiable boiling substance on the portable stove.

“Lentil pasta,” Dan’s mother replies, her head inside the doorway of her tent in search for something. “I thought we’d go Italian, but with a healthier twist to it, and- ah!” she emerges, holding a wooden spoon and giving her brow a mock-wipe. “ _There_ it is. I knew we’d packed it somewhere.”

“Ew.”

“Looks like sick,” Liam wrinkles his nose.

Dan’s mum pretends to swat him with her spoon. “ _Behave_.”

“What?” he frowns. “It _does_.”

“And _you_ look like a twat with your hair like that, but I don’t complain,” Dan answers before his mother can, eyeing Liam’s tragic attempts at gelling his hair into a quiff. He looks like the statue of fucking liberty.

Dan’s mother throws him a half-grateful glance – only _half-_ grateful because of Dan’s crude use of vocabulary, but it had been in her defence, so she doesn’t object.

Liam lunges for Dan, but the elder boy acts quickly, throwing both his arms out and shielding himself from Liam’s shove. Liam sinks back in his seat, instead settling for a steady glare, his brown eyes piercing into Dan’s own. Dan smirks proudly.

“You aren’t much better; emo boy,” Liam mutters grumpily to himself, and Dan flicks his fringe proudly.

“I look better than _you_ ,” he mutters. “Why’ve you done it like that anyway?” he asks, genuinely curious. It hadn’t looked like that before he visited the cabin, and Liam’s usually never one for style. “You never do your hair.”

“What’s it to _you_?” Liam mumbles. “I just fancied a change.”

“Oh, so that’s why I caught you taking selfies with my camera?” their mum pipes up, not taking her eyes off the lentil concoction she’s stirring.

“Mum!” Liam hisses bashfully, and Dan chokes on his water.

“ _What?”_

“Oh, come _on_ sweetheart,” their mum giggles. “As if I couldn’t _see_ you in my tent?”

Dan cackles, and Liam throws a stick at him, his face flushed pink.

“I was just testing out the camera,” he mutters, angrily swatting away his mother’s hand when she tries to ruffle his spiky hair.

“More like testing out your _posing_ skills,” Dan retorts before he can stop himself, and seconds later he feels a small rock hit the side of his head.

“Fuck off,” Liam mutters under his breath.

“Hey,” this time their mother actually swats him with her beloved wooden spoon. “That’s enough of that.”

“Why aren’t you hitting _him_?” Liam nurses the hit area on his arm, pointing to his older brother, who fixes him with an insulted glare at Liam’s wording of that sentence. “He started it.”

“I didn’t start _anything_!” Dan protests.

“I’d rather not hit _either_ of you” their mum says. “But that’s enough of that language, Liam,” she adds sternly. “You’re only twelve.”

“Very nearly _thirteen_ , actually,” Liam focuses his glare back on the infamous lentil pasta, absently fingering his badly gelled hair and trying to twist it back into place.

Dan throws his brother a smug smile when their mum’s draining the pasta once her back is turned. Immature, definitely, but he can’t help it. His brother brings out the twelve-year-old in him.

The pasta is pretty disgusting, to say the least, and as Dan spoons another mouthful of weird-mushy-lentil-what-the-fuck-am-i-actually-eating down, he can’t help but wish he could be somewhere else right now. Somewhere where he doesn’t have to include himself in three different conversations at once – somewhere where he can have a break from having to etch on a fake smile and pretend to be enjoying this disgusting camp food (he’s decided ‘healthy’ definitely isn’t for him), and somewhere where he can just be alone with his own thoughts.

Perhaps not completely alone, actually. Dan can certainly think of a particular person he’d rather be spending dinner with right now – he wishes he hadn’t had to leave the cabin so suddenly.

-

It’s a lot colder than it was last night.

Dan shivers – he’s used to warm city nights; the layer of clouds acting as a blanket across the sky and warming the atmosphere trapped inside, away from the stars and illuminated (or rather, polluted) by streetlights.

But here, outside his tent, he’s completely exposed to the cold atmosphere, and he curses himself for not sneaking out a jacket when he had the chance; if he goes back in now, Liam’s _sure_ to wake up.

He throws the forest a quick glance, wondering if he can face that alone. He’d half-remembered the route, he thinks – around a couple of trees, down a path, turn righ- no, left, was it? He frowns, trying to retrace his steps. In all honesty he’d been so overridden with fear and anxiety it comes as no surprise to him nothing had actually stuck in his memory, despite his denial.

Fuck, he needs that Lester kid.

He whirls around helplessly, although the site is so dark because there’s never any _light_ here he doesn’t know whether he’s facing the woods or the cabin anymore. Not even the moon is out tonight and his phone’s on four percent battery so he can’t use the torch, and the pounding in his chest begins to harden as the looming quietness of the country, the absence of the hum of traffic he’s so used to being surrounded by back at home, begins to catch up on him.

He shouldn’t have come out tonight, he gulps. Oh god, he feels sick. It’s too quiet and it’s too dark and the countryside is fucking _terrifying_ when it wants to be; he’s beginning to debate whether or not the stars are actually _worth_ it, because at this rate he doubts he’ll make it much past his tent without either falling over or running straight back to safety, and neither of these options sound particularly appealing when the sky looks like that and he can’t just gather up enough courage to go and see it.

“Are you lost?”

He jumps, whirling around and feeling his heart hammer. He can’t even make out the direction from which the voice came from.

“I-… who said that?” he manages to stammer. The voice is soft and unthreatening and of course he knows _exactly_ who had said it which is why he hadn’t fled the minute he’d recognised it, but he doesn’t know from _where_ – for all he knows, Phil could be standing miles away, he could be right next to him, he could be already in the forest, he could-

He feels an arm on his shoulder, and he flinches slightly – he’s still shaking from the fear of the dark country followed by the unexpected company.

“It’s only me,” Phil chuckles breathily, and by the sound of his gentle footsteps he’s standing somewhere to Dan’s left; at least somewhere within arm’s length considering his hand’s still on Dan’s shoulder.

“Can you even _see_ anything?” Dan frowns, squinting. His heartbeat’s managed to slow down a tiny fraction, but the darkness is still blinding.

Phil shrugs. “Nope.”

“How can you just walk around like that?”

“Can you see anything when you walk around your house in the dark?”

“Obviously not?” Dan frowns, not really knowing where this is going.

“Exactly. You can’t, because you don’t _need_ the light to guide you. You can get around without seeing anything, because you already know where everything is.”

Dan still remains blank.

“It’s the same thing here, for me,” Phil elaborates after Dan’s lack of response. “I just know my way around here. It’s like walking around your house in the dark, but on a bigger scale.”

“Even the forest and stargazing field and stuff?” Dan widens his eyes, his heart thudding.

“Of course,” Phil shrugs. “Everything within about a mile radius of here, I could probably get around _blindfolded_ if I put my mind to it.”

“Wow,” Dan raises his eyebrows at that, because _shit_ , that’s quite impressive.

“You were about to go to the field, I’m guessing?” Phil asks after a short silence.

“I-… yeah,” Dan gulps. “But-… could we-… er-…” he gestures to his phone, clicking the ‘home’ button and indicating the battery percentage. Phil immediately knows what he’s getting at, and he chuckles warmly, digging his hand in his pocket and pulling out a torch, flicking it on. Dan immediately feels tension unknot as soon as the silver beam of light flashes through the atmosphere, and he manages a smile.

“Better?”

“You know your entire way around here in pitch blackness, yet you carry a _torch_ in your pocket?” Dan questions. He knows he should probably just be grateful that he _has_ a torch, but he can’t help it.

Phil shrugs. “Perhaps I knew you were going to be here tonight.”

-

The next couple of days follow in a similar manner – Dan will be told he’s being dragged to some kind of family-based outing, he’ll visit the cabin or information centre (wherever he sees Phil first), complain to Phil about the day, get handed more stargazing leaflets, spend the day reading them, argue with Liam over something trivial, come back to disgusting camp food, and meet Phil in the cabin at sunset (they’ve decided it’s easier to meet there instead of Dan scaring himself shitless by being alone in the dark waiting for Phil).

Phil’s day follows in a slightly different manner – he’ll watch the campers (usually the Howells) over breakfast from out of the kitchen window; giggling fondly through spoonfuls of cereal at whatever Dan and Liam are arguing over this time, make his way to the information centre if he doesn’t get stopped and interrogated by some camper on the way, endure however many games of snake it takes until Dan arrives, listen to him complain, spend the rest of the day roaming around the campsite in search of something, _anything_ to do, wait until Dan comes back, make dinner using whatever he has left in the cupboards, and wait for Dan to meet him in the cabin at sunset.

He realises how much of his new routine has been taken up by Dan – he’s either watching him, waiting for him, or thinking about him.

It’s sunset now, and the bronze glow shines through the window in beams, casting pools of light onto the wooden walls, furniture and floorboards. He jumps upon hearing the click of the door, watching as Dan steps inside, making his way over to the mattress where Phil’s sat and letting the door slam behind him.

He doesn’t necessarily have to sneak around; his family knows who Phil is and equally they know how much Dan loves stargazing so it doesn’t take a genius to work out where he is during the late hours of the evening into the morning.

They just don’t know how _long_ he stays out for with Phil, and if they _were_ to find out, Phil doesn’t think he’ll be the ‘Golden Boy of the Year’ they’d mapped him out to be in their heads any longer. He’d tried to make a good impression, and succeeded by all means; but ‘staying up until the stars disappear at four a.m. every night with their son’ is something he should probably keep quiet if he wants to remain high in their estimation.

“I can’t believe we’ve been out here for five hours,” Dan had giggled shakily – it’s a lot colder than usual tonight and he’s been shivering non-stop for the majority of the night.

“Doesn’t feel like it, does it?” Phil glanced at him, and then at the moon which had panned across the entire black stretch of sky during the time they’d been sat out here together on the grass.

“I woke Liam up again last night,” Dan shuddered at the memory. “I think he’s beginning to get suspicious.”

“He isn’t buying the ‘toilet’ excuse anymore?” Phil raised an eyebrow.

Dan shook his head. “We come back at nearly the same time every morning. I think he’s beginning to pick up on it.”

Phil widened his eyes. “He wouldn’t tell, would he?”

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Dan sighed, shuffling up onto his knees and slouching. Phil does the same. “I wouldn’t put _anything_ past him; snitching little bastard.”

“Does he know where you are?” Phil had asked.

Dan had looked at him. “Liam’s not stupid.”

Phil nods, not really knowing what to say.

“It’s such a _pain_ having to share with him,” Dan had changed the subject with an indignant whine, picking a strand of long, yellowed grass and playing with it thoughtfully. “Not only because of the waking up thing, but he snores like a _bitch_. I’m surprised you can’t hear it from your _own_ room.”

Phil chuckled. “I’m surprised I can’t either. You would’ve thought with a campsite as small and as quiet as this, sound would carry better.”

“It certainly carries well enough in _our_ tent,” Dan muttered. “Last night, I didn’t get to sleep until gone seven in the morning.”

Phil frowned, before gulping. He studied Dan briefly, and _shit_ , he previously hadn’t realised because it had been so dark, but in the dim blue light of the morning catching up on them, Dan’s dark circles shadowing his eyes, his ruffled, unbrushed hair and stifled yawns really _were_ visible.

“I can tell,” Phil said. Dan looked up, frowning. “No offence.”

“None taken,” Dan had smirked humourlessly, “I’d just kill for one _quiet_ night, you know? One night where I don’t have to worry about waking him up, having barely enough room to breathe and being kept awake by his problematic nostrils.”

Phil had spluttered with laughter at that. “ _Problematic nostrils_. Sounds like a bad band name.”

“What would their hit single be?” Dan smirked. “ _Snoring Child O’Mine_?”

“ _Snores Like Teen Spirit?”_ Phil suggested.

“ _We Will Wake You_?”

“ _Snoring Nation Army_?”

“ _One Hundred Sleepless Nights_?”

“Hey,” Phil frowned. “Don’t rip off _Pierce The Veil_ ,”

“I didn’t even need to change the title,” Dan shrugged, chuckling. “ _And_ it’s relevant.”

Phil gulped again, glancing up at Dan curiously.

“What?”

He shook his head, waving him off. “It’s dumb.”

Dan frowned. “No, go on.”

Phil sighed, rolling his eyes. “I was just-… I was gonna suggest that-…” he shook his head again, “nevermind.”

“Come on,” Dan was intrigued. “What were you going to say?”

Phil sighed defeatedly. “Well-… like-… well, you don’t _have_ to obviously, but I was just wondering if-… because-… y’know, Liam and all that-… if perhaps you wanted to-…I don’t know-”

“Spit it out,” Dan rolled his eyes.

“-…maybe spend a couple of nights with me?” Phil had mumbled all at once; if it wasn’t as deafeningly quiet as it had been in the campsite, Dan wouldn’t have heard it.

Dan gulped, glancing up suddenly.

“Really?” he broke the silence after a couple of agonisingly long seconds.

“If you’re that tired,” Phil shrugged. “it’s just a thought, I mean-… it’s not exactly _luxury_ but it’s quiet, it’s, well, it’s pretty comfortable, it sometimes gets a bit cold because the radiator goes off at eleven, but-“

“I’d love to,” Dan had interrupted with an awkward smile. Phil glanced up, the corners of his mouth twitching up into something similar.

“I usually sleep on the sofa when it’s all folded up because, well, I usually can’t be _bothered_ to unfold it into the bed, but if I do, it’ll be big enough for-“

“Phil,” Dan cut him off. “It’ll be fine. I promise _anything_ will be better than sharing with Liam.”

“If you’re sure,” Phil smirked, hauling himself up and letting bits of grass, flecks of dirt and whatever other field debris he’s covered in fall off. He held out a hand to help Dan up.

Dan took it cautiously, letting himself be pulled up. He stretched out the cramp in his legs from sitting cross-legged all night, and tilted his head up to the sky. It had faded from navy to cerulean and the stars had dimmed; the majority of them were invisible in the new morning light but he could still squint and make out a couple of tired glimmers, maybe a constellation or two, but nothing much.

“Let’s go inside,” Phil tugged gently on his arm, and it was only then Dan realised he’d been shivering.

So, that’s the solution – Dan sleeps with Phil now.

“Hey,” Phil smiles as Dan sits down on the unmade duvet covering the sofa bed.

“Hi,” Dan sighs, shutting his eyes and letting himself flop back onto the pile of pillows scattering the mattress.

“How was the Heritage Trail?” Phil raises an eyebrow.

Dan opens one eye. “Tiring.”

“See the ruins of Hartington Palace?” Phil guesses. Dan nods.

“Prettiest pile of bricks I’ve ever seen,” he says through a yawn.

Phil smirks, lying beside him and staring up at the slanted wooden ceiling above them.

“Thanks for letting me stay here, by the way,” Dan says quietly after a couple of minutes. “I appreciate it.”

“Are you sleeping better?” Phil asks.

“A lot,” Dan nods. “I’d forgotten what it feels like to be _truly_ well-rested until last night.”

Phil steals a quick side-glance at the brown-haired camper, and the differences are already pretty noticeable. His dark circles had faded slightly, his hair looks neater (Phil had reluctantly given him an adaptor for his straighteners; he likes his hair wavy) and when Dan had woken up, he’d told Phil it had been the first night in months he’d actually slept through without disturbance.

Phil smiles. “Glad to hear it.”

They stay there, simply lying side-by-side, enjoying the comfortable quietness between them.

“Do you wanna eat with me tonight?” Phil’s the one who breaks the silence this time. “I mean, I don’t have much else except pasta so I hope you like pasta, but whatever you were eating last night you didn’t look as if you liked it, so-“

“As long as it doesn’t involve _lentils_ ,” Dan shudders, “I’ll be up for it.” He stares back up at the ceiling for a couple of moments, mentally replaying what Phil had just said, before frowning. “Hang on – you can see me from the cabin?”

Phil flushes red, realising what he’d just said. He nods, smirking. “Look,” he hauls himself up from the bed, pacing up to the window and nodding out of it. Dan follows.

“Wow,” Dan huffs at the view – every tent in the campsite is visible, along with every camper, every cubicle and every water faucet. “ _Now_ I feel stalked.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Phil rolls his eyes, “it’s just people-watching. I do it to everyone.”

“Quality entertainment, eh?” Dan raises an eyebrow.

Phil nods. “It’s the closest I can get to a soap opera without a TV.”

“You must’ve had fun watching me and Liam, then,” Dan smirks.

“Oh, loads,” Phil says. “I wish I knew what you guys were arguing about, but I can’t hear anything from here.”

“Too bad,” Dan throws him a quick glance. “You aren’t missing out on much, if I’m honest.”

“Bickering over whatever it is you’re having for dinner?” Phil begins pacing towards the door, expecting Dan to follow.

“Or laughing at his shit haircut,” Dan says, following Phil out of his small bedroom cabin and into the main one.

Phil chuckles. “Now I really _do_ wish I could hear you.”

-

“Is it alright?” Phil asks when they’re sat around the small kitchen table with small bowls, paper napkins (Phil had tried to fold them into cool shapes for Dan like Joe had taught him in Catering class, but had given up shortly after remembering he has no idea how to make a swan out of kitchen roll) and salt and pepper shakers between them.

“ _So_ much nicer than whatever they’re having,” Dan replies through a mouthful of pasta.

“I kind-of feel bad for your mum,” Phil sighs, remembering the slightly offended look on her face when Dan had told her he’s eating with Phil tonight.

“Oh, don’t worry about her,” Dan waves his concern away, taking another bite, “she’s used to me not eating with them – I’ll always be off for dinner with a friend.”

“Wish I could say the same,” Phil stabs his pasta thoughtfully. “My nearest friend is three hours away from me.” Dan glances up at him.

“You should eat with us one night.”

Phil looks up suddenly. “Really?”

Dan shrugs. “Yeah.”

“Why?” Phil asks, before quickly shutting his eyes, shaking his head. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he quickly adds before Dan’s expression can skew into anything else, “I meant, like, wh-“

“Why not? You’ve made me this,” Dan nods to the pasta, “you’ve given me somewhere to sleep, you’ve been helpful to the rest of my family. Why shouldn’t I return the favour?”

Phil’s expression falters slightly.

“With a _guarantee_ of no lentils?” Dan persuades further.

“I-… thanks,” Phil’s face melts into a shy smile, and he looks up at Dan. _“_ An _absolute_ guarantee?”

Dan chuckles fondly. “Or your money back,” he jokes, and Phil giggles this time.

-

The night is a little less cheerful than the last – instead of looking up at the stars, admiring the stories of ancient mythology written in dot-to-dot across the night sky, joking about song titles related to Dan’s snoring brother and laughing about, well, anything that came to mind, really; they’re lying side-by-side in the field, their backs slightly dampened from the dew forming in the grass, and they’re talking about their own lives. Properly, this time.

Neither of which happen to be very uplifting topics, as it turns out.

“You know,” Dan turns to Phil. “Last weekend, the day we arrived here?”

“Mhm?” Phil doesn’t take his eyes off of the sky – he’s still trying to find bloody Pleiades after he’d lost it ten minutes ago.

“It was my birthday,” Dan sighs.

Phil rips his gaze away from the sky. “What?”

“Mhm,” Dan’s the one looking up at the stars this time. “I had plans to go out with my friends, to spend a night out on the city, to go clubbing or something, but instead I turned eighteen years of age, alone in the middle of the countryside.”

“Shit, isn’t it?” Phil sighs, and it’s then Dan remembers.

“Sorry,” he mumbles apologetically – he feels a little bad. “I forgot.”

“It’s fine,” Phil waves the apology away. “Sometimes even _I_ forget,” he pauses, glancing back up to the sky. “What was it you said you wanted to do with your friends?” he asks after a couple of minutes.

“Huh?” Dan frowns.

“Clubbing or something?” Phil says, his brow skewed into a frown. “What’s that?”

Dan stares at him. “You don’t know what _clubbing_ is?”

Phil shrugs. “Why _should_ I know? I’m hardly ever in the _village_ with my friends – let alone the _town_.”

“Try living in a _city_ ,” Dan sighs, before backtracking. “Clubbing is-… I don’t even know how to describe it,” he huffs. “You go out with your friends to this-… this weird place thing with loads of flashing lights and multi-coloured drinks which often taste like toilet cleaner, and music so loud you can’t hear yourself _think_. Basically.”

“Shit,” Phil widens his eyes, “sounds like something out of Doctor Who.”

Dan giggles. “It does sound pretty sci-fi when you put it like that, I must admit.”

“What do you do it for?” Phil asks. “Do you get any enjoyment out of it?”

“I don’t, personally,” Dan says. “I _never_ go to clubs.”

“They sound awful,” Phil shudders, before glancing back down at Dan. “So it was your birthday last weekend, was it?”

“Mhm,” Dan nods.

“And you chose to come here instead of a clubbing thing?”

Dan nods again. “I guess so.”

Phil frowns. “Why?”

Dan sighs, shutting his eyes. When he opens them again, he’s looking up at the stars. “Clubbing is the kind-of thing you do if you have enough friends,” he says. “It’s a place to go _with_ people, to be with _more_ people, and come home with people, or- I don’t know, a person. _Someone_.” he gulps. “But stargazing-… you don’t need someone else. Well, I mean, it’s nice to have the company,” he gestures towards them, “but it’s not _essential_. It’s _optional_. Like-… I didn’t expect you to be here when we went camping; I was just here for the stars; and I’m sure you can agree with me, because even if I wasn’t here, you’d still be looking at the stars. We’re both here for the stars, and consequently, that’s why we’ve been brought together like this – through our mutual love for whatever’s going on up there,” he grins at a distant galaxy.

Phil’s almost silenced. He gulps. “For someone from the city, you sure do think about this a lot, don’t you?”

Dan nods. “Too much.”

Phil shakes his head. “You can never think about the stars too much.”

“You can never look at them too much, either,” Dan sighs. “I can’t be sure I want to leave this for the city.”

“You’re missing the city, though, aren’t you?” Phil turns to him.

Dan shrugs. “There isn’t much I miss other than the safety.”

“What about your friends?” Phil asks. “Surely you don’t get enough signal out here to talk to them?”

Dan shrugs greyly. “I don’t really have that many _friends_ , to be honest. I mean – not enough to actually talk to on a regular basis, but-…” he shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“What?” Phil’s voice is barely a whisper.

“I mean-… I have friends, I have _lots_ of friends but,” Dan shrugs again. “I don’t think I’m particularly _close_ to any of them, if you know what I mean?” he throws Phil an anxious glance.

Phil gulps, his heart thudding because he knows _exactly_ what Dan means. He nods mournfully.

“I know what you mean,” he muses, watching the stars glimmer brightly through the darkness down at both of them. He’s hardly a stranger to loneliness – it’s why he loves the stars so much; they’re beautiful, they’re admired by millions, but they’re so fucking _lonely_.

“You remind me of a star,” Phil says without thinking.

Dan looks at him. “What?”

“Stars,” Phil points to the stretch of light above them, “all _belong_ somewhere in the sky, as far as astronomers and stargazers are concerned. They’re all grouped together in constellations, alongside other stars usually of the same constellation, if not of a neighbouring one. They live surrounded by others. They all have a place in the sky, the galaxies, and the universe, right?”

Dan nods slowly, not taking his eyes off of Polaris.

“They look so-… so beautiful, so admirable, so surrounded, but-… really, they’re the loneliest things ever,” Phil finishes. “There are _light-years_ between stars in a constellation. Even more so between neighbouring constellations. They look so surrounded by each other, but really, all they’re surrounded by, is _nothingness_. They’re as alone in the universe as we are.”

Dan gulps, taking a deep breath, and Phil glances at him.

“Never once did I think someone like yourself; constantly surrounded by so many people, could be so _alone_ ,”

“Just because someone isn’t alone, doesn’t mean they aren’t _lonely_ ,” Dan sighs, his voice wobbling slightly because he still can’t fucking understand why Phil seems to _get_ him, he seems to understand him on a level so deep it’s _scares_ Dan because no-one’s ever bothered to look past his shallow surface to actually give a shit about the person underneath. The lonely, isolated person underneath basking in the safe artificial light of the streetlights stays hidden beneath layers and layers of pretend confidence and false fearlessness.

Layers that the countryside, and _Phil_ , had stripped from him.

“I just happen to be both,” Phil sighs, and that’s it.

Dan can’t hold back the urge to hug him anymore.

Within a couple of silent seconds, he’d shuffled up closer to him and offers an awkward arm around his waist, trying to hug him.

“What are you doing?” Phil tenses up suddenly – he isn’t used to contact like this.

Dan freezes up almost immediately. “I’m sorry, I-…” he stutters. “I was-… I was just trying to give you a hug.”

Phil frowns – not an expression of indignance or disgust, by any means; it’s a genuinely confused frown. “Why?”

Dan gulps, shrugging. He tries to hide his blush, letting his hair flop over his warming cheeks as he tries not to display how foolish he’s actually feeling right now. “I-… it’s just something I like to do. I hug all of my friends.”

“I-…” Phil gulps. “I’m sorry, I just-… I don’t really _do_ ‘hugs’ that often. I don’t really _understand_ them.”

“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t-“ Dan shuffles away from him awkwardly, leaving a cold gap between the two of them. “I didn’t know.”

“No, no,” Phil protests quietly. “It’s okay.”

“But you-“

“Do it again,” Phil says, sitting up properly. Dan mirrors him, his vision swimming for a couple of seconds due to how quickly he’d just hauled himself up. “I like hugs. You just took me by surprise, that’s all.”

“Okay, well-“ Dan begins, feeling a bit awkward now. He holds out both of his arms, shuffling onto his knees and leans forward until his chin rests on Phil’s shoulder. He places his hands cautiously on Phil’s back, and a couple of seconds later, he feels Phil’s arms wrap around him.

“Is this okay?” Dan mumbles after a few more seconds into the gentle, slightly awkward hug. Phil sighs, not immediately answering until they pull away.

“That was nice,” he says. “It’s been a while since I’ve hugged someone.”

“Same,” Dan admits. “I _love_ hugs. They’re even better when you’re cold.” If on cue, he lets out another shiver. Phil frowns.

“You need a jacket. Why didn’t you bring one? Clear nights are always the coldest – you don’t have the insulation of the clouds.”

“I’m aware,” Dan’s teeth chatter. “I’m just so used to warm nights; you know, the insulation from the city pollution and stuff. I didn’t really think it would be much different here.”

“You city folk are all the same,” Phil scoffs, but there’s an underlying fondness in his tone.

“Do your usual customers know as much about the stars as I do, then?” Dan raises an eyebrow, looking back up to the star-dusted sky.

“Nope,” Phil’s gaze follows. “You definitely surprised me there, I have to say.”

Dan smirks, but before he can add anything, he feels an awkward arm around him again. Although his heart jumps suddenly, he doesn’t tense up or pull away – Phil’s too surprisingly warm for him to do anything other than lean into him, savouring his body heat through his t-shirt.

“How are you so _warm_?” he mumbles. He hears the hum of Phil’s chuckle deep in his chest from where his head’s leaning against it.

“How do you think?” Phil says. “I’m completely used to this.”

“Even still,” Dan shrugs, still leaning into his embrace. “You’re like a fucking human radiator.”

“One that doesn’t switch off at eleven p.m,” Phil remarks.

Dan smirks in response, and a couple of seconds later they pull away, resuming their cross-legged stance in the field, both of their heads tilted upwards toward the sky.

“It’s nice out here,” Dan sighs. “Cold, but nice.”

Phil doesn’t reply immediately, but half a minute of silence later, Dan feels him sigh.

“It always is,” he finally says. Dan doesn’t know if he means it’s always cold, or always nice. Perhaps he means both.

“Happy birthday for last weekend, by the way,” he mumbles.

Dan giggles, and looks back up at the stars. “Thanks.”

He’s not alone, (he’s _never_ alone – he lives in the city, for God’s sake), but for the first time, here beside Phil with wall-like shields of long grass surrounding the dent they’d made in the field, well, – he doesn’t feel lonely.

For once in his life, he _doesn’t feel lonely_.

-

“What’s this?” Dan frowns at the long parcel sitting on the information desk. The area is significantly less cluttered than usual because Phil had said his parents are coming home today, and for once Dan can actually _see_ the wood underneath the stacks of paper that usually tower over Phil and his computer.

Phil looks up from the pencil pot he’s organising. “Oh,” he lets out a little nervous chuckle, leaving the messy stationery. “I- er, I forgot this was out.”

When Dan steals a quick glance, he realises Phil’s cheeks, shielded by his fringe, are peony.

He grabs the tubular parcel, fingering the foil curls of the ribbon thoughtfully for a moment before finally throwing his gaze back up to Dan. He hands him the parcel.

“Happy birthday,” he says bashfully.

Dan immediately feels his own cheeks burn. They probably match the shade of Phil’s.

“Oh, Phil-…” he giggles, his mouth stretched into a grin no amount of his fringe can hide.

“I was planning on giving that to you tonight, but-…” he shrugs. “You might as well open it now, seeing as I’m so shit at keeping surprises.”

Dan chuckles and his fingernails pick at the sellotape delicately. It’s wrapped so neatly, so carefully, he almost can’t _bear_ to rip anything.

“Hurry up,” Phil mutters after it takes Dan the best part of a minute to remove one strip of tape from the paper, but soon enough he has the gift shelled of its wrapping, and he’s speechless.

Phil shrugs. “I couldn’t buy you anything proper seeing as any decent shops are so far out, but I hope this makes up for it.”

“Did-…” Dan shakes his head. “Did you _paint_ this…?”

When Phil nods, Dan blinks, his eyelashes fluttering in disbelief down at the picture.

It’s a landscape of a city, at night. As far as the buildings go into the distance, the darkness is peppered by twinkles of artificial lights from the skyscraper windows, streetlights, car headlights, and when Dan squints he realises even little _people_ have their own amber beams of light radiating from them – they’re part of the city, they created the light in the first place, therefore they shine. Above the skyline is a stretch of stars, dots of planets and swirls of galaxies – all of which Dan recognise. Phil’s positioned Bull and Pleiades exactly where they should be, along with the whole of Orion, his head and his shield, as well as his famous belt. Phil had used metallic paint and even a little sprinkle of glitter to fill in the darkness of the sky, although Dan realises how he’d carefully avoided the colour black, because, really, the sky is anything but.

When he sees how Phil had put the Gemini and Aquarius constellations beside each-other, his heart catches in his throat. Phil had painted the stars making up Gemini with the same amber light surrounding them, because Dan’s a part of the city. He makes the light, he shines along with the city stars, but he’s in the sky, because he belongs there too. He realises the Aquarius stars making up the constellation don’t have any light surrounding them, but Phil had stuck rhinestones down in place of the stars, because he only belongs up in the sky – he doesn’t shine in artificial amber, but in silver instead. He’s not a part of the city, but he watches over it every night, even if he’s always covered by a layer of pollution and clouds.

Dan knows what that means. Phil won’t be there when Dan has to return home, he never will be there, and maybe they won’t see each-other ever again so it isn’t as if they can start anything serious, but he’ll always be watching over Dan; even on the darkest, loneliest nights.

“It’s us,” Phil says, his voice soft. “City stars, and sky stars,” Dan notices how he refrains from saying ‘real’ stars in the same way Dan would refer to them as. “So different yet so similar.”

Dan doesn’t realise he’s crying until he feels the hotness of one tear rolling down his cheek. He wipes it away hastily, but Phil still notices.

He pulls Dan in for a hug – this time not tentative, not cold, and certainly not awkward; just his arms tight around the shorter boy, his embrace warm and protective and Dan puts the beautiful painting down and wraps his arms around Phil’s waist, his face buried into his chest.

They stay there like that, not really caring how visible they are to other campers and about the fact anyone could just walk in right now. All Dan cares about, all he can have the capacity to care about in his little urban heart, right now, is Phil.

When they pull away, Dan does something he’d sworn to himself he’d never do.

He kisses Phil.

He balances up on his tiptoes because _shit_ , Phil’s tall, and Phil leans down to meet Dan’s lips in a shaky, gentle kiss that sends adrenaline shooting through their veins and every single nerve ending a live wire. Phil’s lips are soft against Dan’s and Dan can definitely tell from the clueless lack of movement in Phil’s mouth that this might actually be his first ever kiss, but that’s okay because the kiss is only short; Dan pulls away after a couple of seconds and suddenly they’re both breathless, speechless, and pretty much _anything_ with a –less added onto the end.

 _Fuck_.

“Thank you,” Dan whispers against Phil’s shoulder, their arms still loosely around each-other. “For everything.”

“I mean it,” there’s a crack in Phil’s voice, and if Dan didn’t know any better he’d wonder if he’s crying too now.

Dan knows what he means. He knows that Phil knows he’d picked up on pretty much every hidden message in the picture. Phil had been too shy to tell him outright, so he’d instead expressed his feelings through the medium of dark colours, glitter and light, and Dan had understood it, he’d understood _him_ , better than he’d understood any other human being the city had to offer.

They search each-other’s eyes and Dan can feel so many thoughts and confessions on his lips ready to say to Phil, but all that comes out is the same fucking phrase over and over again.

“Thank you.”

Phil’s lips twitch up into a watery smile because he’s tearing up now, and he slides an arm around Dan’s waist, pressing a chaste kiss to his forehead.

“I’m glad you like it.”

Dan’s already mentally planned out the perfect spot on his bedroom wall where that picture’s going to go.

-

“Oh, just ignore him and you’ll be fine,” Dan reassures when they walk over to the Howell tent together.

Phil had been a little apprehensive about sharing dinner with Dan’s family – for one, what if there isn’t enough pasta to go round? He knows just as well as any campsite owner that food, well, isn’t _scarce_ , but certainly isn’t unlimited when you’re as far away from the local shop as they are, and for another – what if his parents don’t like him? He knows he’s come across well so far; always there to ask for any information or adapters, and Dan’s parents are beginning to get a little more familiar with him, but there’s still always time for opinions to change, isn’t there? What if they’re polite, but secretly think he’s a massive twat? What if they’re making something he doesn’t like? What if-

“Stop worrying,” Dan can sense Phil’s tension by the way his jaw is clenched ever so slightly. “They already love you, you know they do.”

“They don’t _know_ me.”

“ _I_ know you. And I like you,” Dan says.

“You’re about thirty years younger than them.”

“Liam isn’t. Liam’s younger than _both_ of us.”

“That’s no guarantee he’ll like me.”

“Like I said,” Dan rolls his eyes. “Just ignore him, and you’ll be fine.”

“As long as you two don’t start bickering like you did the other day,” Phil mumbles.

“He started it,” Dan says childishly.

“Whatever,” Phil replies, but he’s smirking now.

“Just in time, Daniel,” Dan’s mum beams, handing him an oven glove. “The pasta needs another five minutes. Will you watch it for me while I go and get some more water?”

“Sure,” Dan shrugs. “Where are Dad and Liam?”

“They’ve been sat down all day, so they’ve gone for a little walk to stretch their legs,” Dan’s mum says, her eyes flickering briefly to Phil.

“Nice footpaths round here,” Phil chips in, his ‘son of the owner’ switching on autopilot although his voice carries a hint of nervousness. “They’ll be spoilt for choice.”

“They certainly will,” Dan’s mum nods, getting up and leaving Dan with the cooking timer. Phil isn’t sure she’s really twigged Dan’s intending on letting him stay for dinner – as far as she knows, he’s just some son of the owners who hangs around with _her_ son a lot and hovers around the tents awkwardly.

“Sit down,” Dan motions to the empty fold-up chair next to him when she goes.

“Are you sure they’re okay with me staying?” Phil frowns.

Dan rolls his eyes. “Are we really going to go through this again?”

“It’s just- your mum- you didn’t really make it clear to her that I’m here for dinner.”

Dan shrugs. “She’ll assume. She probably already has.”

“Is it that much of a normal thing?” Phil narrows his eyes.

“You’re saying that as if I’m some kind of foreigner,” Dan scoffs.

“You might as well be, sometimes,” Phil says, his voice a little solemn.

Dan’s expression softens. “You’ll be fine. She already likes you, what with everything you’ve done for us over this past week.”

“I’m sure that can quickly change if she knew what we’ve been doing out in the fields at, like, four in the morning,” Phil mumbles, but Dan shrugs.

“She knows I sleep in the cabin,” he says.

“ _What?”_ Phil stops suddenly. Dan _told_ her?

“What?” Dan frowns at his surprise. “It’s no big deal. It’s not like she knows we’re out in the field at god knows what time.”

“Why did you _tell_ her?!” the alarm rises in Phil’s voice.

“Why not?” Dan shrugs again. “Chill _out_ Phil – I’m sleeping in your cabin, not _bombing_ it.”

“Does she know we’re sharing a bed?” Phil gulps.

“Why should I tell her _that_?” Dan makes a face. “She’s my mum, Phil, not my best friend.”

“How come she’s so-… _okay_ with it, though?” Phil mumbles, but breathes out a sigh of relief. The last thing he’d want is for Dan’s mum to find out her son’s been sleeping in a stranger’s bed with no heating. “My parents would flip if they knew I’d been anywhere _near_ another cabin if we were campers.”

Dan shrugs. “My mum’s used to me going off with other people all the time.”

Phil doesn’t quite know how to respond to that. He and his parents are good with people, sure; but Phil’s never really had the classic ‘teenage friends’ experience – his friends don’t come round for dinner, he rarely goes to parties and has never, _ever_ actually been to a sleepover. No wonder his parents are so laid-back about it – Dan’s just doing what he does best; socialising.

“Well,” Phil begins after a couple of seconds. “It’s good she hasn’t objected to it, I guess. I wouldn’t want to see you go back into Liam’s tent.”

“Oh god, no,” Dan shudders. “I’d rather spend a million and one nights here than one night back there.”

“I’d rather you do that, too,” Phil’s reply is unintentionally solemn and it suddenly catches him off-guard that there’s no way they can spend a million days together because Dan’s leaving soon.

Fuck, _Dan’s leaving soon_. It’s only just occurred to them both.

“I don’t want to go,” Dan suddenly gulps, and Phil throws him a desperate glance because he doesn’t want him to go either.

Call him horribly selfish, but he’s so fucking annoyed – the one time he actually finds a friend, a real, breathing human being who takes a genuine interest in him and actually understands him, it has to be one who couldn’t possibly have a more different lifestyle to him and will shortly be forced a hundred miles in the opposite direction, leaving the country for the city.

He doesn’t want to stop him – Dan’s a city boy, he _needs_ the city and Phil knows that better than anyone; years of experience dealing with urban-raised campers who go just about crazy on the fourth night without civilisation tells him everything he needs to know.

He just wishes there was another way.

“I don’t want you to go either,” Phil mumbles in response when he remembers to. Dan sighs, taking the pasta off the heat and draining it, sending a cloud of condensation up into the air as he pours the boiling water out of one pot into the other.

“She can do the rest,” he mumbles, sitting back down and nodding to his mum. “My culinary skills leave much to be desired.”

Phil smirks. “What are we having?”

Dan looks at him, and then at the drained pasta. “Did you really just ask that?”

Phil rolls his eyes. “I mean, what with? Sauce? Cheese?” he pauses, “ _lentils_?”

“Oh leave it out,” Dan pretends to swat him. “I don’t actually know, but she used up all of the lentils for last night’s dinner so I wouldn’t worry too much about that.”

“Good,” Phil smirks. “Don’t get me wrong; I’m sure your mother’s cooking is good, but-“

“But if you want to keep that impression of her, stay away from the lentil pasta,” Dan finishes his sentence, chuckling.

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Phil grins.

“There we go, boys,” Dan’s mum comes back, filling two plastic cups with water from a pitcher.

“Thank you,” Phil takes the drink politely, sipping from it before placing it in the cup holder in the armrest. He’s still trying to get his head around the fact Dan’s mum had just assumed he would be staying here for dinner without Dan even having to do so much as grace her with Phil’s presence for five minutes. He still feels a little out of place, even now when Dan’s mum’s dishing out the pasta and he can see Dan’s father and brother emerging from the West footpath and back to the site.

“Just in time,” Dan’s mum beams at the two of them, handing her husband a plate of pasta.

His eyes flicker to Phil casually. “Hi, there.”

“Hello,” Phil smiles, switching the friendly ‘ _son-of-a-Lester’_ act right on.

“Phil’s joining us for dinner tonight,” Dan’s mum introduces, handing Dan and his brother plates of pasta. Dan’s brother spares Phil about half a glance before turning back to the fusilli.

“Oh,” Dan’s father nods rather casually, as if his mother had just announced she’d bought new socks or something. “How’s business going for you, then?” he stabs a piece of pasta with his fork, and Phil glances up. He wouldn’t really call it business, as such – in his mind, that comes under the semantic field of big cities and buildings and men power walking to work in their suits and briefcases, but he responds even so.

“It’s always good this time of year, around summer,” Phil says.

“Ever get any custom in winter?” his dad asks.

Phil hesitates. “Yeah, a bit. Around that time, sometimes you can see the northern lights from one of the hills which is a great attraction.”

Dan’s father looks impressed. “Well, I’m no stargazer myself. We just came here because _this_ one loves that kind of stuff,” he jerks his head towards Dan, who exchanges knowing grins with Phil.

“Oh, he’s a right little astronomer, our Dan,” Dan’s mother beams, and Phil nods.

“He certainly knows a thing or two about the stars,” he agrees, and Dan throws him a fond little glance. He’s blushing a bit, now.

“I see you’ve given him a lot of those stargazing books,“ Dan’s mum peers inside the tent.

“Oh, well- y’know, they were no use to me anymore and seeing as Dan loves the stars I figured maybe-“

“No, no,” Dan’s mother grins. “It’s extremely kind of you. Would you like us to make it up-…?” she glances to her purse. “I mean, those books must be worth a lot of-“

Phil shakes his head vigorously. “Not at all, Mrs. Howell. Honestly – I’d rather know what a good home they’re going to than sell them. Knowing how much Dan will benefit from them is a profit enough in itself,” he smirks.

Dan’s mum looks as if she’s about to melt. “Oh, what a sweetheart you are. Well, thank you very much. This has been the best birthday he’s ever had.”

“Wish I could say the same,” Liam mumbles through a mouthful of sauce.

“Be quiet, you,” Dan’s mum glares at him, though there’s no venom in her tone. “Your time will come in May.”

“Heh- you’ll have to _Hold On Till May_ ,” Dan snaps up the opportunity for the bad music-related pun, and both Phil and Liam groan and roll their eyes.

“Yeah, you think that’s bad – I have to _live_ with this,” Liam glances up at Phil, a little shyly.

“You have my sympathy,” Phil smirks and Dan swats him.

“Shut it, you two. My puns are _great_.”

“They cause me great _pain_ ,” Liam mutters.

“So does your hair, but I don’t complain,” Dan retaliates playfully, grinning until a piece of saucy pasta gets flicked onto his t-shirt. “You _bastard!”_

“Boys-“ Dan’s mum shuts her eyes, throwing their father a glance. “It’s like trying to train _monkeys_ , having these two together.”

“Are they always like this?” Phil smiles politely, watching as a piece of fusilli hits Liam’s jeans.

“Oh, yeah,” Dan’s mum rolls her eyes. “Liam really brings out the ten-year-old in our Dan.”

Phil watches them for a couple of minutes, chewing thoughtfully. They can bicker for England, he knew that right from the very first day he’d met them, but they clearly love each-other. There’s a strange dynamic between them, he decides – they constantly get on each-other’s nerves and they spend most of their time together hurling insults at each-other, but they wouldn’t have it any other way.

Phil’s only been here for about ten minutes, and he can see that despite what Dan’s told him about his family, it’s clear to him his family think the world of him. He might not be able to see that all the time – sometimes it’s very hard on the darkest of nights, but Phil can. Phil can see Dan isn’t as alone as he feels, and his family is lovely and he doesn’t know what he _himself_ had been so worried about regarding the pasta, because it’s perfectly edible and tastes really quite good.

He grins for the rest of the dinner and when he’s finished, he offers to help Dan and Liam wash up.

-

Evening falls in colours of pastel orange, red and purple, and Phil’s busy taking the bins out when Dan approaches him

“Hey.”

Phil glances up from the plastic bag’s he’s clutching. “Oh, hey. Thanks for this evening, by the way. It was lovely.”

Dan’s responding smile is soft. “My family love you.”

“I love your family,” Phil grins.

Dan leans against the wall of the cabin and stares into space for a couple of brief minutes. “I think I’m lucky to have them, y’know” he confesses after a minute, so quietly Phil could’ve chose whether he heard it or not. It’s random, but he thinks Phil should be used to his suddenly deep musings by now.

He chooses the former. “You are,” he says, his tone just as soft, “trust me.”

Dan’s smile is solemn, and he watches as Phil pushes the lid down on the bins. “I never really-… I don’t know. It’s hard to describe- I never really-… _appreciated_ my family that much until now. It’s not until you get away from it all you actually realise how much they mean to you- y’know? I don’t know, it sounds so fucking soppy but-“

“It’s amazing what the countryside can do, isn’t it?” Phil dusts his hands off, and glances over towards the trees. “C’mon, let’s walk and talk.”

Dan follows him. “I mean like-… I don’t know. I feel as if we’ve bonded more, or something.”

“That usually happens, yeah,” Phil says. He’s seen it all before – all this ‘family time’ stuff, but it’s never any less endearing seeing it happen all over again. Especially with a family as special as the Howells.

“I don’t want to go,” Dan breaks the silence a couple of minutes later with a small gulp. He looks around him; at the surrounding trees, the leaf-scattered paths with branches and twigs underfoot, and he notices the swirl of anxiety in the pit of his stomach at the very thought of going anywhere in the countryside alone has subsided over the course of the week and a half. The countryside is still unfamiliar and there’s still no way he could _live_ here, but it doesn’t terrify him anymore, which has to be a good sign.

“I don’t want you to go either,” Phil sighs. “Do you think you’d come again?”

Dan nods before Phil even finishes his sentence.

“Really?” Phil’s smiling now.

“Is that really a question?” Dan frowns, and Phil remains wordless, obviously wanting Dan to say it outright. He rolls his eyes. “Oh my god, yes. _Yes_ ,” once he starts talking about the campsite, he can’t stop, “-fuck, Phil- I-… do you _really_ think this place will never see me again? That I’d be all ‘ _oh, that was fun, but it’ll be the Bahamas next year for me_ ’?”

Phil shrugs. “Just checking.”

“I’ve seen the world, Phil. I’ve _been_ to the Bahamas, and all I got was terrible heatstroke and mosquito bites for the week. But-…” he sighs, “ _this_ place-… no amount of weird exotic holidays could match it up. I mean- yeah, it’s in the middle of fucking nowhere, but that’s what makes it so _special_. Yeah, you have to use those weird adapters for electricity and there’s fuck all signal up here, but you don’t need signal or your phones or even the internet, because you have the stars, and the stars are what people come here for, right? So why would you need technology to occupy you like you do back in the city?”

“Is this your way of saying you’ll be back here?” Phil asks, genuinely interested, but Dan can hear the smile in his voice because _of fucking course_ he’ll be back.

Dan glances at Phil. He glances down to the path, then up above their heads. It’s still light, the sun couldn’t have set more than half an hour ago, so there’s still a pale afterglow colouring the sky, but stars are already beginning to twinkle into the pastel backdrop.

“Yeah,” he says after a couple of seconds. “You could say that.”

-

As usual, they don’t make it back to the cabin until gone three in the morning, talking about themselves, the country, the city, but most importantly – the stars. They gaze up at flickering pinpoints of light and shiver in the night air and talk about Ancient civilisation and how the stars were anchors in their lives; governing every part of their directions, guiding sailors home and predetermining fates. That makes Dan sad, because compared to how much humans used to rely on the stars back then compared to now, it’s just _sad,_ really – they’re unheard of in the city, and in the country, they’re just a tourist attraction, nothing more than something pretty to look at.

When Dan leans in and kisses Phil, his lips are cold and soft. Dan feels a jolt of adrenaline in the pit of his stomach and Phil lets out little shaky sighs against Dan’s mouth.

They don’t talk anything over, they don’t discuss their feelings towards each-other because they both know there just isn’t time to start anything and end up getting attached. But when Phil’s hand finds Dan’s and their cold fingers interlock, Dan smiles and gently traces his thumb over Phil’s right hand; the very same hand that put paintbrush to paper and created the picture that hadn’t left the back of Dan’s mind since he first set eyes on it.

And they kiss again.

-

“Can I-… can I ask you something?” Dan murmurs against Phil’s lips when they’re a tangle of limbs and loosely fitting pyjamas under the duvet of the sofa-bed. They haven’t really been doing much more than making out for the past fifteen minutes, but their thighs are overlapped and the amount Dan’s crotch accidentally ruts up against Phil is beginning to get _painful_.

“What?” Phil pulls away, their noses brushing as their lips hover over each-other’s.

Dan gulps, his fingertips tracing patterns on Phil’s back. “Have you ever-… done anything? With a guy?”

Phil hesitates, his teeth nipping at his lip. A couple of silent moments later, he shakes his head a little sheepishly. Dan responds with a fond little smirk.

“Sorry,” Phil mumbles.

“Don’t _apologise_ ,” Dan’s hands find the back of Phil’s neck, and when he caresses it, Phil represses a moan by pressing his lips back against Dan’s. They kiss again, but Phil pulls away.

“I don’t really-… y’know. I didn’t come _equipped_ for that kind of-“

Dan shuts his eyes, dismissing Phil with a little laugh. “It’s _okay_ , Phil. Really.”

Phil sighs, and when he brushes up against Dan, he’s hard. Dan’s breath catches in his throat, and he feels arousal prickling at his hips.

“I would’ve brought some myself, but, y’know-…” Dan pecks Phil’s lips teasingly. “I didn’t really expect the son of the owners would be _this_ hot.” It’s meant to be a half-joke but there’s some truth behind it – Dan’s no virgin, but making out with Phil has already made its way up with some of the most hottest experiences Dan’s had as an adolescent. Phil doesn’t even have to _touch_ him to drive him crazy.

“Shut up,” Phil murmurs against Dan’s lips, slipping his tongue inside his mouth. He ruts up against him again, and this time Dan can’t hold back a moan. It’s _so fucking hot_.

“Fuck-…” he bites his lip at the sudden contact. “A little _warning_ would’ve been ni-“

“Are you this talkative with _all_ your lovers?” Phil frowns.

“Killing the mood, am I?” Dan raises his eyebrows.

“You will be if you don’t shut up,” Phil smirks, but his hands find the brown mop of Dan’s hair and he grips it, kissing Dan roughly – partly to shut him up, but mainly to hear that _fucking moan_ again.

“You _fucki_ -“

His words are cut off by Phil’s crotch against his again, and he tightens his grip of his fingers against the black-haired boy’s shoulders.

“ _Shh,”_ Phil says when he remembers to pull away from Dan’s lips, and when he grinds against him again, Dan doesn’t need telling twice. His hands snake down from Phil’s shoulders, resting on his hips when they stroke across his torso.

“How far-…” Dan’s breathing is hard, and his tone is coloured with desperation, “how far are we going to take this?”

Phil doesn’t respond immediately. His lips work down Dan’s jawline, and when he presses the first kiss to the sensitive skin of Dan’s neck, the boy gasps beneath him, pulling his hips down to meet his own.

“Phil-…” Dan’s voice is weak

“What did I say about not talking?” Phil mutters against Dan’s neck because this boy really can’t just enjoy something without feeling as if there’s a silence to break.

“It’s-… it’s a valid- _fuck_ -“ he cuts himself off when he feels Phil’s mouth widen and his tongue beginning to trace patterns on the delicate skin. “It’s a valid- question-…“

“Shh-…” Phil breathes in between pecks, his fingers tracing the waistband of Dan’s pyjama bottoms.

It’s less than ten seconds before Dan speaks up again. “But what if-“

Phil’s kisses become hungry little nips, and the boy underneath him cuts his own sentence off with a sharp gasp.

“The more you talk, the more I’ll distract you,” Phil warns all in one breath because _fuck_ , it’s hard to talk and do this at the same time and he really doesn’t know how Dan does it.

“I swear to fucking God, if you leave a hicke-“

Phil grinds into him, harder this time, relishing in the throaty whine Dan lets out. “-it’ll be your own fault for not shutting up.”

“Fuck off-“ Dan mutters, his cold fingers hesitating over Phil’s pyjama waistband because the friction between them is delicious but not _enough_.

Despite his biting desperation for more, Dan hooks his thumbs over the material of Phil’s boxers and flashes him a quick look. Phil finds enough composure to nod out a little gesture, and that’s all Dan needs before suddenly the clothing below Phil’s waist ends up on the cabin floor with a little thud and he’s tugging tentatively at Dan’s pyjamas.

“Fucking- hurry _up_ ,” Dan whines after a couple of minutes, his impatience rising.

Phil actually obeys this time without complaining about Dan’s excessive talking. Within seconds, he’s de-clothed from the waist down and their bare legs tangle beneath the warm duvet, movement becoming marginally easier without the denim barrier of clothing separating them.

Dan moans with surprise when Phil shyly slips his tongue into his mouth, silencing him of any further possible remarks, complaints, whines or mutters. Admittedly, Dan realises with Phil’s lips on his and their crotches brushing up against each-other he’s too fucking horny to _think_ straight anymore, let alone string any sentences together. Phil’s so skilled with his mouth it’s kind-of hard for Dan to believe he’s never done anything like his before, but right now, he isn’t exactly in any position to question Phil on his sex life.

After a couple of seconds, Phil’s hands move from Dan’s waist and stroke down to his hips, resting on the waistband of Dan’s boxers, hovering there for a couple of seconds for permission.

From what Phil can see of Dan through the mess of his fringe over his eyes, slightly damp from sweat despite the coldness of the cabin, he gives him a little nod before leaning in and kissing him again, tasting desperation as Phil’s fingers tentatively dip below Dan’s waistband.

-

They don’t have sex. To be honest, they’ve barely done anything at all before Dan feels his orgasm threaten to build with Phil’s mouth gently kissing its way up his cock, stripping Dan of any self-composure because fuck, Phil really is good with his mouth and he’d made Dan moan in a way he really couldn’t have kept quiet from anyone; not even through the firmly locked doors of the cabin, meaning if anyone _did_ hear, he probably has a considerable amount of explaining to do. Phil’s breathing is deep and irregular beside him. Dan leaves little, gentle kisses on Phil’s lips which are soft and swollen, before he breaks away first, nosing Dan’s neck and snuggling into him, their legs slightly overlapping.

“Thank you,” Phil sighs, his voice carrying a sleepy scratch to it that makes Dan want to kiss him.

“Thank _you_ , more like,” Dan sighs, his chest falling. “I don’t think I’ve ever come that hard before.”

Phil allows himself to chuckle. “Me either.”

They stay like that, both of them staring at the ceiling intently as if hoping to somehow see through the wood and up into the sky, dusted with stars and distant galaxies and planets and whatever the fuck else there is floating up there watching Phil and the campers sleep every single night.

The three words, those eight small letters are on Dan’s lips, but he knows he can’t say them. They only have three days left before he has to leave the country for the city, leave the fresh air for the daily pollution, leave the silence for noise and leave the stars for the streetlights, and there’s just no _time_.

They lie there for what could either be five minutes or half an hour, simply breathing in the presence of each-other and trying to process what the fuck had actually just happened. Less than forty-eight hours ago they hadn’t even _kissed_ , yet here they are, side-by-side, still reeling from their post-orgasm highs. Dan fears it’s moving too fast he knows all too well that a little after another forty-eight hours into the future this ‘thing’ they have will be heading right towards a crash into a brick wall, but maybe, just _maybe_ for the time being, he doesn’t care. Perhaps he can leave his worrying for when he’s actually leaving Phil, and leave this moment, this moment when they’re unusually warm in the coldness of the cabin and all Dan can hear is the steady breathing from the black-haired teenager next to him, worry-free. It’ll look better in his memory, after all.

So that’s just what he tries to do. He snuggles back into Phil, listening to the gradual slowing down of his heartbeat under his pyjama t-shirt as he settles down into a light sleep, and tries to craft this moment into one he can look back on with bliss (and, of course, one he can look back on when it’s 3am and he’s horny and lonely and craving Phil’s touch, but he’s a little more hesitant to admit that exact purpose).

-

“D’you have Skype?” Dan asks over breakfast the next day. Phil had woken up before him and Dan had wandered into the kitchen to find the breakfast bar cleared of the clutter of cookbooks and camping leaflets and prettily laid out with two plates in front of the chairs facing opposite each-other, two mugs, and two sets of cutlery. Phil had glanced up from the frying pan at him, giving him a warm smile, and Dan’s heart had threatened to melt there and then.

Phil takes a bite out of the bacon rasher. “What’s Skype?”

Dan stops chewing his slice of toast. “You don’t know what _Skype_ is?”

Phil frowns. “Should I?”

“Well-…” Dan doesn’t really know why he finds that so surprising – this is the same boy who didn’t know how to use a self-service checkout, after all. “It’s like-… a video chatting program you can get on your computer. You get a webcam, which is like- a camera attached to your computer so the other person can see you, and- well, it’s just like talking on the phone but with a picture.”

“Sounds futuristic,” Phil’s eyes widen. “Is this a new thing? Like- _new_ new?”

Dan shakes his head, feeling a pang of fondness for Phil’s oblivion to technology. It’s pretty fucking cute, but also a little sad at the same time.

“Not really.”

“So like-…” Phil’s intrigued now; his eyes are glittering. “You can call people up, like how you do on a normal phone, but you can _see_ them too?”

Dan nods, and Phil gasps.

“I wanna try,” he says wistfully. “That sounds so cool.”

“It is,” Dan lies – it’s about as ‘cool’ to him as the concept of colour TV, but for someone who, as far as technology is concerned, seems to still be stuck in the nineteen-seventies, yeah; it probably _is_ cool. 

“I should come to the city one day,” he says. “I’d like to see this Skype thing.”

Dan smirks. “There’s certainly more where _that_ came from in the city,” his eyes flicker up to Phil and meeting his gaze for half a second, wondering what he’d make of Dan’s MacBook. “But you should,” he adds, “you should come someday.”

It’s more of a plea than anything else, but Phil seems enthusiastic enough about it.

-

Dan settles for a mobile phone number exchange. Phil’s phone is hardly state-of-the-arts against Dan’s iPhone, but it’ll suffice. It’s not perfect, it certainly isn’t Skype, but it’ll do. At least he’ll get to hear his voice again.

Dan taps Phil’s phone number into his contacts in about a fraction of the time it takes Phil to carry out such a task. Dan figures the replies he’ll be getting from Phil will probably be few and far between.

But he certainly isn’t complaining – _some_ form of contact, slow as it might be, is better than none.

“Thanks,” Dan grins when Phil finishes copying the number on the screen and gives him his phone back. It had been a weird sight, seeing Phil with an iPhone, and Dan actually wonders how he’d cope in a city. He knows Phil longs for company, he yearns for civilisation, but he figures Phil’s idea of a city might not be the same as the reality of Dan’s home. The lights are pretty, but there’s no way Phil would cope alone with the noise of the traffic, the crowds swallowing him up on a busy day in the street, the pollution coating the sky and the scarily advanced technology. But as long as Dan’s there, as long as Dan’s protecting him, he figures it’ll be alright. It’ll be terrifying, sure, but it’ll be okay.

“I’ll come to the city one day,” Phil promises with wide eyes. He gently pulls Dan in by his waist until they’re leaning against the information desk in the cabin, and he presses a kiss to his lips. It isn’t long, but it isn’t really short either, and it’s just enough to send both of their hearts racing underneath their plaid shirts until they pull away, both of their faces plastered with a shy smile and a blush. Dan likes kissing Phil – he smells nice and his lips are always soft and he’s so fucking _skilled_ with his tongue; he still ceases to believe his best kiss is with someone who’s never really had a proper relationship in his life.

“Good,” Dan’s heart begins to thud as they search each-other’s eyes, the warmth of Phil’s body so close to Dan’s lingering between them and Dan wants nothing more than to kiss those lips again, but he’s overwhelmed with the slamming realisation that they now only have two days, _two fucking days_ left together until he’s alone.

It’s weird, he thinks; when he’s in the city, surrounded by civilisation and people and crowds, he feels as fucking lonely as ever. Yet here, with Phil, isolated pretty much in the middle of nowhere with a maximum population of about twenty people on the site at any given time, he feels complete. Whole, almost. He doesn’t need a crowd to make him feel a part of something; he doesn’t need the white noise to drown himself out.

It’s contrary, and he doesn’t really understand it – he doesn’t understand how he’d gone from practically shitting himself every time a twig snaps in the forest, to ending up in bed with Phil, certain that he couldn’t be any happier anywhere else.

He wonders if Phil would feel the same in the city. If, through all the initial fears and anxieties that being in an alien environment brings, he’d feel complete in such a place, surrounded by millions and millions of beating hearts and bright lights. Phil, feeling isolated in a place with no people, and complete and happy in a densely populated area, has it the right way round. His logic makes sense, unlike Dan’s.

Or maybe, Dan thinks, stealing another kiss, maybe it isn’t anything to do with flawed logic at all. Maybe it’s just wherever Phil is, Dan feels safe. Maybe Phil could make the city feel less lonely for him after all, and maybe Dan’s made the countryside feel less isolated for Phil. Maybe it isn’t anything to do with where they are, but rather _who_ they’re with.

Maybe his home isn’t the city. Maybe his home is with Phil.

Or maybe, just _maybe_ , it’s that they fell in love. Under clear skies and cold nights, they fell in love.

-

Phil’s parents are the carbon copies of him, Dan decides.

They finally return home after their two weeks of being in Scotland for whatever reason it was (Phil had been quite vague when explaining to Dan why they aren’t around), and when Dan had seen the car pull up beside the cabin, he’d made himself scarce. Perhaps being caught sleeping with their son wouldn’t be _spectacular_ , as first impressions go.

“Stay,” Phil protests when Dan makes for the door. “I want you to meet them before you go.”

 _Before you go_. The words sting coming from Phil in such a casual manner. It makes it seem all too real; almost as if they don’t talk about it, if they don’t bring it up, then it might not actually have to happen. Dan could live in quiet harmony with Phil on the little campsite, they could watch the stars out in the field every night until the sunrise erases them and make each-other pancakes and talk about stargazing and the best walking routes to the customers every morning at the information desk. They’d never have to be separate; Dan would only have to travel back to the city if Phil was there with him.

He sighs, and Phil misreads his subdued expression.

“Don’t you want to meet them?” his frown is slightly concerned.

Dan rolls his eyes. “Of _course_ I want to meet them.”

Phil allows himself to smile with relief at that. “Good. I want you to meet them. They’d love you.”

Dan isn’t so sure about that – he’s not certain what’s so appealing about a pretty boring, kind-of average seventeen year old from a narrow-minded urban background with a very annoying younger brother, but Phil remains adamant – he picks up on his expression, and no later than three seconds does he have Dan’s waist in his arms and their noses brushing against each-other.

“D’you want to know why they’ll like you?” he whispers almost inaudibly.

Dan gulps, his throat tight with the feeling of Phil _so fucking close_ to him.

“Why?” his reply is barely a whisper.

Phil presses a kiss to his lips. “Because you make me happy.”

And they do like him, much to Dan’s initial nervousness and constant hair touching to make sure his fringe doesn’t look weird because he’d forgotten to straighten it this morning and he doesn’t want to come across as scruffy. They barely _notice_ his appearance – they’re too interested in asking him questions about his family, why they decided to come here, if they enjoyed it, whether they’ll come again and if Phil was a good enough temporary owner for them. Dan rather feels as if he’s being interrogated despite it being all in a good nature, but he manages to stutter out a _‘it was my idea to come here, actually’, ‘yeah we really did’, ‘definitely’_ and a ‘ _yes_ ’ along with a sly side-glance in Phil’s direction to which the black-haired boy grins in response.

He doesn’t want to hover; they look as if they have a lot of stuff to sort out, so he sees himself out with a quick ‘ _nice to meet you’_ and a quiet “see you later” to the boy tidying up the desk leaflets before leaving them to their own devices.

When he arrives back at his family’s tent, he notices his father and brother have gone off somewhere again and his mother is sitting alone on a fold-up chair, reading a book and sipping coffee out of a flask. Dan would feel a little guilty for leaving her like that, but being the avid literature reader she is, he doesn’t doubt Jane Austen has been sufficient company for her during his absence.

“Hi,” Dan uncaps a bottle of water when he arrives, sipping casually.

“You’re spending a lot of time with that Phil boy,” Dan’s mum barely looks up upon her son’s entrance.

Dan frowns, pausing before he takes a seat on one of the fold-up chairs. He hadn’t really been expecting _that_ as a greeting.

“Is that a _bad_ thing?” he mumbles after a couple of seconds. He doesn’t deny it; he knows as well as anyone that the amount of time he’s spending in the information desk can only really mean one thing.

She looks up from her book this time. “Don’t be _silly_ , Daniel,” she rolls her eyes.

Dan’s frown grows. “Silly?”

“A ‘ _bad thing’_ ,” she scoffs. “Why on _earth_ would it be a _bad_ thing? I haven’t seen you this happy in years.”

Dan’s heart jumps up to his throat, and there’s a lingering silence.

“Oh,” is all he can come out with.

She’s smiling down at her pages, now. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were in love,” she scoffs amusedly at her own remark, but it’s enough to make Dan’s heart thud more. What does she know? Has she _seen_ anything?

“Psh,” Dan shakes it off with a chuckle, although the nerves in his tone are audible. “Phil’s just a good friend, mum.”

“A _good_ friend, eh?” She raises her eyebrows, before shaking her head. “I’m just glad you’re happy, sweetheart. Phil’s a nice kid.”

“Yeah, he is,” Dan’s response is rather short, but he feels uncomfortable talking about this with his _mother_. “But-… y’know, we’re not-“

She chuckles heartily. “I’m just _teasing_.”

Dan laughs along with her, but makes a mental effort not to let the way he looks at Phil become apparent to other people. He doesn’t really want his mum knowing, because with her mouth, the entire _city_ will know in a couple of days’ time when they’re back.

But, well, it’s nice to know that she happy for him.

“Thanks,” Dan says quietly, fiddling with a loose thread on the armrest. He feels a little bad for not being totally honest with her (he refuses to call it lying because they’re _not_ official by any means) because what he has with Phil is hardly something he wants to hide, but for the time being, he figures it’ll have to be something kept between just the two of them. At least until they’re sure there’s more than a zero-point-two percent chance of them meeting again at some point.

Dan’s mother doesn’t respond verbally so he isn’t certain whether she’d heard or not, but when he looks up, she’s smiling to herself. Not a smile of amusement, but- well, a smile of _happiness._ Almost as if she’s genuinely _pleased_ that, boyfriend or not, Dan’s finally found someone who can wipe that permanently sullen expression off of his face.

-

Dan doesn’t spend nearly as much time with Phil’s parents as he’d have liked to. He’d immediately taken to them for having pretty much the same genuine, lovable personality as Phil’s inherited, and they’d happily chatted to Dan’s family over a portable stove-cooked-dinner (as incredible as these two weeks have been, Dan must admit he won’t be sorry to finally eat something other than pasta once they’re home) whilst Phil had managed to strike up a conversation with Dan’s brother about Pokémon, breaking the ice a little between them until Liam dares to begin smiling and actually participating in proper conversation with the older boy. It’s pretty heartening to watch, to be honest, and Dan finds himself smiling down at his food whilst listening to Liam discuss with Phil who would win in a fight between Cyndaquil and Moltres.

“Is that really a _question_?” Liam had scoffed when Phil had proposed the idea.

Phil shrugs. “You never know. Cyndaquils can be fierce.”

“ _Fierce_ ,” Liam scoffs. “Yeah, when they aren’t being as much use as a fucking _teddy bear_ on the battlefield,” he flashes a glance up at their mum after his slip of the tongue, although thankfully she’s too busy talking to Phil’s mum about the lentil pasta recipe she’d created herself to pick up on his language.

“Don’t you think they’re cute?” Phil protests. “They could kill a Moltres with cuteness, surely.”

Liam snorts. “Yeah, taking a legendary fire pokemon down with a pretty face. That’s what Cyndaquils do best.”

“They _are_ cute, though,” Phil fawns.

“I’m guessing you’re a sucker for the cute ones?” Liam raises an eyebrow, and he looks just like Dan when he does that, Phil decides.

Phil nods emphatically. “Chikorita, Totodile, Vulpix, all that lot. I just want to keep them as _pets_.”

“ _Pets?”_ Dan and Liam share a glance. After having many arguments over how powerful Articuno would be against Zapdos, hearing Phil fawn over a pokemon as useless as fucking _Pichu_ or something is new to both of them.

“I’d pay to see a battle between Totodile and Blastoise, personally.”

“Or Vulpix against Charizard.”

“Wouldn’t it make more sense to put Vulpix against Ninetails? Or Charizard against Charmander?” Liam frowns.

Phil shrugs. “They’re all fire Pokemon, aren’t they?”

The two Howells roll their eyes at that, returning to forking their pasta thoughtfully. Dan can tell Liam’s probably feeling the same way towards finally getting back to normal food in a couple of days’ time.

-

It’s the last night, and the stars have really put on a show.

There’s a small dent in the miles and miles of field which Dan and Phil have made over the course of the two weeks. They’re lying in it now, the very same spot, side-by-side, mirroring the same positions they’ve been adopting ever since the very first night under the stars together. Dan’s always been on the left, and Phil’s always been to his right – in fact, the only change that had happened in regards to their positions have been that now they lie with significantly less space between them; Phil’s arms are slung around Dan’s waist and Dan’s head rests on Phil’s chest, listening to his heartbeat in time with his own.

“Nice, aren’t they?” Phil mumbles after a short silence; his voice sounds deeper from inside his chest where Dan’s ear is resting, and he jumps at the sudden hum.

“What?” Dan frowns, and Phil nods up to the sky.

“That’s a rather casual way to talk about the stars,” Dan frowns. They’re more than nice; fuck, they’re _so_ much more than nice. He doesn’t want to leave them.

He feels Phil shrug. “They’re especially nice tonight.”

“They’re nice _every_ night,” Dan tilts his head upwards, staring at the glitter of Taurus above the two of them, surrounded by a blanket of other constellations, some fainter than others, some brighter than others, some fading in and out of focus.

He hears Phil gulp. “Are you looking at Taurus?”

Dan feels his heart twist at that – he remembered pretty much the first ever night he and Phil had watched the stars together and how they’d talked about Taurus and light-years and Aldebaran and how nothing that’s above them is actually there anymore.

“Yes,” Dan’s reply is quiet and feeble because he knows exactly what Phil is getting at.

“Aldebaran?” the half-smile in Phil’s voice is audible, but so is the sadness.

Dan huffs out a humourous laugh. “Sixty-five light-years away.”

Phil sighs, not coming up with a better response other than “yeah”.

Dan sighs into the silence that follows; he doesn’t want their last night together to be a miserable one.

“I’ll miss you too, Phil,” he begins. “Fuck, I’ll _more_ than miss you. You know that.”

Phil frowns a little out of confusion at that, and Dan can sense it, so he doesn’t hesitate to make his point a little clearer.

“But I don’t want to spend my final night with you moping over the fact that this time tomorrow I won’t be here anymore,” he feels Phil flinch, and it’s then he realises there were definitely less blunt ways of wording that, but whatever. “I want to spend my final night with you doing what brought us together in the first place. What we came here to do. What you’ve been brought up doing, and what I’ve been yearning for, for fuck-knows how many years,” his gaze flickers upwards, and he nudges up to Phil a little closer. “ _Stargazing_.”

“Yay,” Phil mumbles, his voice a little flat.

Dan pauses for a moment at Phil’s monotony – his tactics definitely haven’t pushed the boy’s frame of mind into something half-agreeable. He’s going to have to try harder.

He gulps, turning his head to look at the stars.

He’s going to have to tell the _truth_. Somehow, anyway.

“Phil, I-“ he’s interrupted by a quick flash of something across the sky, and it’s so quick that by the time his eyes register what it is he’s just seen, it’s gone.

“Fuck, did you see that?” he glances at Phil with wide eyes a brief silence later. “That was a falling star.”

“A meteorite,” Phil interrupts his intake of breath, his tone still monotonous and slightly forced, as if he’s been put on autopilot.

Dan frowns, flickering his gaze away from the sky. “No it isn’t.”

“Shooting stars, falling stars, they happen when meteorites enter the earth’s atmosph- wait, what did you say?” Phil finally snaps out of his trance, looking down at Dan for the first time.

“It’s not a meteorite,” Dan repeats, almost as bewildered as Phil is, Phil the campground owner who knows just about everything there is to know about whatever’s up there.

“What?” Phil almost sounds _offended_ , at a push.

“It isn’t a meteorite,” Dan repeats, his frown still knitted in his brow. “It’s a _meteor_ , isn’t it?”

Phil’s frown doesn’t falter. “ _What?”_

“No, it’s definitely a meteor,” Dan nods, remembering what he’d learnt in Physics last year. He fixes his gaze back onto the sky and if he’s not hallucinating, he’s certain that’s another one he’s just seen. “I’m pretty sure a meteo _rite_ is what it’s called once it enters the Earth’s atmosphere. Before that, it’s a meteoroid. That’s what I learnt anyway.”

Phil’s silent, his expression just about visible in the silvery light of the moon. He’s still pretty bewildered, but Dan doesn’t mistake the flicker of curiosity in his eyes for anything else and sees it as an invitation to continue sharing the only thing he’d learnt in Science that year.

“Yeah-… and when it’s entering the atmosphere, the friction, pressure and chemical reactions with the atmospheric gases cause it to heat up and radiate the energy; forming a fireball,” fuck, it’s all coming back to him now, “this is what makes it shine and leave a trail in the way it does,” Dan gulps, staring intently at the sky as if in search for another one. “That’s what makes it a ‘falling star’, if you will.” He’s always found that term a lot more appealing – as if once upon a time, the ancient civilisation really _did_ believe stars were falling out of the sky.

“And, wait, so- what’s it called when it’s in that stage?” Phil’s tone has slightly more colour to it, but Dan’s still a little taken aback, because, seriously, how does he _not_ know about this? How is it _Phil_ asking _Dan_ for knowledge on the stars for once?

“A meteor,” Dan muses. “It goes from a meteoroid, to a meteor, to a meteorite.”

Phil gulps. “Oh.”

Dan feels a flip of anxiety in his stomach, a rush of adrenaline through his veins, but it only motivates him to continue, because he has an idea. He knows it’s going to sound stupidly pretentious and if it causes Phil to run off fifty miles in the opposite direction and never return then he’ll understand, but he thinks maybe, _maybe_ he might be onto something here.

“Did you not know?” he asks in the most casual tone he can manage.

Phil shrugs. “I don’t know much about the science-y side of it. Well, I mean, I do, but I’m more into the astrological stuff. You know, horoscopes and the Zodiac and shit.”

“The myths behind the stars, right?” Dan offers. He’s always seen the contrast between astronomy and astrology similar to that of science and fiction.

“Yeah,” Phil nods. “I can tell you everything about Bayer’s Menagerie and Lacaille’s Mountain and Hercules before I could tell you anything about how hydrogen and helium bond to actually form anything up there,” he hesitates, reflecting on what he’d just said. “It’s quite backwards, isn’t it?”

“So you didn’t know about meteors?” the flip in Dan’s stomach rises again when he eases himself back onto the topic of them. He needs to conclude this, he needs to tell the truth before he’s pulled away from the country and the stars and the lack of signal.

Phil shrugs. “I didn’t know there were so many stages. I just thought the piece of matter flying into the atmosphere remained a meteorite throughout its journey.”

“The earth changes it,” Dan says, his tone almost solemn. “When a meteoroid, it’s floating around in space without much of an orbit, without much of a _purpose,_ really. But gravity pulls it in and suddenly it goes from a floating lump of rock to a _fireball_ what with all the sudden energy and friction and chemical reactions due to the earth attracting this piece of insignificant matter from the space around it. The earth transforms it into something beautiful, something quick, something marvelled at, studied, awed and _wished upon_. It’s quite amazing, really.”

“And?” Phil mumbles when Dan pauses for breath. It’s not in a rude tone, nor in any way impatient, but _eager_.

Dan allows himself to smile, his heart beginning to race because _oh fucking god this is going to sound so pretentious literally why is he doing this._ “Well, going by this, it could be said that stars fall in the same way humans do. Think about it - humans can get attracted to each-other, a human pulled in by another can be transformed, sometimes for the good - sometimes to be turned into something beautiful, something to be remembered, and something to be treasured. Then again, it can sometimes happen for the bad; to fall too quickly and burn out and leave nothing but an ugly scar on the earth’s surface. Either way you look at it, a falling star, although strictly speaking it’s not a _star_ in the same sense a burning cluster of hydrogen and helium atoms are, can be something both beautiful and terrifying, right?”

Phil nods, but Dan can almost hear his frown. “Yeah?”

Dan gulps. “It’s like love.”

 _It’s like love_. His words echo into the hauntingly silent atmosphere for what seems to feel like seconds, minutes, hours after they leave his lips. Phil’s heart is thudding, louder now, and he’s sure Dan can hear it pretty clearly through his pyjama t-shirt.

He sees Phil’s silence as an invitation to continue, although his voice has lost a lot of the initial strength which he started out with.

“Love-… is both beautiful and terrifying. Love is dangerous, love can burn out quickly and leave a scar, or it can stay alight for years in glowing embers. I mean- the more you think about it, the more you can justify the fact that falling in love is very much like a meteoroid falling into the earth’s atmosphere. Because a lot of the time it happens by pure chance – the earth’s orbit just so happens to cut through the trail of a comet because of their specific positions in the universe, very much like two humans can meet just by accidentally walking into the same town, city, school, bus stop, whatever. On entering the atmosphere, it burns up in the same way the desire and passion or whatever, burn up in the early stages of a relationship; when the smallest of kisses or even the slightest brush against the other still feels electric, you know?” as if on cue, he lets his fingertips gently roam the cold skin of Phil’s arms, arousing a shiver from the other boy. He lets his gaze go back up to the stars. “If you think about it, humanity and stars really aren’t that different. We come from the stars, anyway, so-“

Dan hears Phil gulp. “What exactly are you trying to say, Dan?”

“What I’m trying to say, is-” Dan sighs, shutting his eyes once he’d realised how much he’d been rambling without really getting to the point. He lies there, listening to the thump of Phil’s heart and the sound of his breathing beneath his chest. He opens his mouth, but closes it again and gulps. Fuck, he’s scared. He can’t say it.

 _Yes he can_. He clutches onto every remaining shred of composure, fighting off the anxiety that had shut his mouth. He _can_ say it, he’s capable of saying it, so he _will_. Tonight doesn’t hold any time for fear.

“I fell in love with you, Phil.” His voice is hoarse, it’s barely there and to be perfectly honest it’s a pretty pathetic attempt at a confession that’s so strong to him, but he’s said it. “I-… I lo-“

The remaining two words of his sentence are interrupted by Phil’s lips crashing into his own in a cold, clumsy collision. He inhales sharply through his nose and rolls across, into the other boy until Dan’s back is pressed up against the grass and Phil’s legs are overlapping his own.

He pulls away after a couple of seconds, Dan’s hands cold against the small of his back and every breath perfectly synchronised, mixing in the small gap between their lips.

“Say it,” Phil sighs out in one breath, desperation in his tone.

If Dan wasn’t experiencing pretty much every emotion right now; had he not been half-hard and sad and nervous yet excited but tired and really fucking blissed out but also on the verge of tears, he would’ve probably found the capacity to huff out a laugh and a _well I would’ve done had it not been for this minor interruption_.

“Please,” Phil pleads, and it’s only when Dan looks up, he finds tears sparkling in Phil’s fiery blue eyes, matching his own.

He gulps, the words in his throat.

“I love you,” Dan finally whispers in a cracked voice, and Phil sighs, relaxing slightly until his forehead is pressed against Dan’s and a solitary tear finds its way down his pale cheek, dripping off of him onto Dan’s chest.

“Fuck-…” Phil breathes out and lying like this, chest-to-chest, Dan can feel the thud of his heart against his own; the beats almost as synchronised as their breathing.

A flash behind Phil in the sky catches Dan’s eye, and he doesn’t need to look to know exactly what it is. There must be a meteor shower tonight.

“I love you too,” Phil mumbles into Dan’s neck, pressing a quick yet chaste kiss to his collarbone that sends another tear from Dan’s eyes running sideways, down his temple and into his hair.

-

Dan puts the pen down just in time.

Phil stirs out of his light sleep, his eyes fluttering open to find Dan beside the desk, pretending to stretch.

“What are you doing?” Phil mumbles at the sight of his arms, outstretched in a really rather comical pose. He looks like someone from a yoga DVD.

“Just getting up,” Dan pretends to yawn, walking away from the desk and trying to make it look like he hadn’t just been spending the past half hour beside it. “I’ve been awake for ages, but I didn’t want to wake you up.”

“I’m awake anyway,” Phil points out.

“You are _now_ ,” Dan responds.

“I wouldn’t have minded being awake a little earlier,” Phil says when Dan sits back on the sofa bed, perched on the corner of the mattress, eyes locked out of the window at the sight of his tent being packed up.

When Dan doesn’t respond, Phil changes his tactics.

“C’mere,” he mumbles, and Dan sighs this time, melting back into the duvet. He leans back, his head on Phil’s lap and his eyes on the ceiling. He doesn’t want to go.

“I don’t want to go,” he thinks out loud.

“I don’t want you to go either,”

“This sucks,” Dan closes his eyes. “This really fucking sucks.”

“I know,” Phil sighs, stroking Dan’s fringe out of his eyes, “it does.”

Dan doesn’t know how long they stay like that, how long they stay simply in each-other’s presence, but it feels like a while until there’s a knock at the door and they jump apart.

“Come in,” Phil says as he combs through his fringe with his fingers while Dan hauls himself off of the mattress.

“It’s only me,” a voice peers around the side of the door when it clicks open, and Dan’s mum’s face appears briefly. “Just to tell you we’re leaving in half an hour, okay?”

Dan nods mournfully, barely taking it in. “Okay.”

She nods before shutting the door, leaving the two boys to their own devices. Phil has to admit; it’s pretty nice having a morning where he can actually _sleep_ _in_ for once and let his parents deal with any campers (it’s too early to go rummaging around the kitchen for whatever Mrs. Peters didn’t buy for herself), but he can’t help but wish this novelty of a lazy morning could be spent with Dan, whilst he’s still actually _here_ , as opposed to on the day of his departure.

He sighs again, figuring he might as well get up too, now. They stand back-to-back, pulling their pyjamas off and shrugging on whatever stray clothing is lying around on the floor from where they’d taken it off each-other last night, and when Dan’s busy fussing around with his fringe, using the weak reflection of his phone screen as a mirror, he feels two arms wind around his waist.

“You look fine,” Phil mumbles, and Dan sighs. He puts down his phone and lets go of his fringe and occupies his hands with Phil’s, their fingers twining together as Phil rests his chin on Dan’s shoulder.

“I don’t want you to go,” Phil sighs almost in admission, and the desperation in his tone sends a pang through Dan’s heart.

“I don’t want to go,” Dan mumbles in agreement, gently squeezing Phil’s hands. They stay like that for what can’t be very long, because it feels like only a couple of seconds later there’s another knock at the door and they have to jump apart again.

“Daniel? Are you in there?” the voice is a lot less familiar than the last, but Phil responds almost immediately.

“Yeah, he is.”

The door clicks open, and Phil’s mother’s face appears this time, mirroring Dan’s mum only a couple of minutes ago.

“Are you going, now?”

Dan nods, plastering on a quick smile for her as he folds his pyjamas, holding them at arms’ length.

“Well,” she shrugs. “We’re about to go out shopping, so we won’t be here when you leave,” – (of _course_ not, travelling to the nearest shop will take the best part of two hours) – “so I just wanted to pop in to thank you for coming. I know we haven’t seen much of you, but I hope your stay with us has been an enjoyable one nonetheless, and we hope you can return soon,” her voice is a little too formal for Dan’s liking, but her blue eyes hold that warm, welcoming Lester-like glitter that reminds Dan only too much of her son.

“Thank you,” Dan says, feeling his mouth tug up into a grin. “I’ve loved it here.”

“See you soon?” she offers, and when Dan responds with a nod so unmistakably sure, Phil can’t hide the grin that spreads across his face.

“See you soon,” he replies in confirmation.

She gives him a small, grateful nod before seeing herself out, and when the door shuts, Dan turns to Phil.

“Guess I should show myself before my family carry out a search party,” he sighs, and Phil nods quietly in agreement, taking a moment to lean over and neaten up their pillows while Dan gathers his stuff, silently wondering how on earth he’s going to manage sleeping in an empty mattress tonight.

-

Their goodbye is a tearful one, but luckily fairly private. The remaining three Howells had decided they’d rather sit in the car than watch the emotional departure of the two boys that _have_ barely known each-other over a fortnight, after all – if Dan were to see this from an outsider’s point of view, he’d agree that yes, this is probably ridiculous and laughable and very _typical-fucking-hopeless-teenage-lovers_ in every sense of the manner – he can see that from his _own_ point of view, if he’s totally honest.

He’s very thankful for the privacy, despite having been half-seriously warned that if this takes over ten minutes then they’ll be driving off without him (it’s then Dan realises he wouldn’t have cared if they were _totally_ serious about it), and it’s nice to be in total isolation the last time his lips touch Phil’s.

“I’ll text you,” he promises against the soft skin of Phil’s mouth. “I’ll text you every day.”

Phil nods in agreement, pecking at Dan’s lips to seal the promise. “I’ll text you too.”

“And I’ll call you, yeah?” Dan kisses Phil again, making every ‘last’ kiss a mere penultimate because he doesn’t want there to be a last kiss, doesn’t want to be pulled away from Phil and the stars.

“Yeah,” Phil’s attempt at a smile is a pretty forced one, but Dan figures his own expression can’t differ from it too much; he can feel how tight his own lips get every time he tries to fashion his expression into something half-okay. It isn’t long before they kiss again; it’s easier than forcing any emotions they’re currently feeling so far from.

The following kiss is interrupted by two beeps of the car horn piercing the silent atmosphere and Dan’s heart sinks because _shit_ , this really _is_ the last kiss now. He savours it, slowing down and softening every peck, taking in absolutely everything his senses can pick up on; the feel of Phil’s hair and the softness of his warm lips on Dan’s and the taste of him; coffee and toothpaste and mint gum, the fresh smell of his aftershave lingering on Dan’s clothes and how the thick silence surrounding them sounds; something he figures he won’t be hearing for a while now. He savours everything, his senses clinging onto these final moments before they slip from the present into his memory and remain there forever.

They share a sorrowful glance, and Dan feels Phil’s fingers, cold and reluctant, untangle themselves from Dan’s warm clasp.

“You need to go,” he says, but the tearful glint in his eyes only imply he wants Dan to do anything but.

Dan nods, picking up the remains of his stuff and hating the way the horn sounds when it beeps again with growing impatience. Why is it always the things he wants least, are the things he’s forced to do? He doesn’t fucking _want_ to go.

He stops by the door, hesitating with his hand on the doorknob. He glances over his shoulder.

 _I love you_ , he mouths, and Phil manages a watery grin.

 _I love you too_ he mouths back, watching as Dan slips out of the door, watching as the brown-haired figure fades into the distance, his figure getting smaller and smaller across the campsite until he disappears into a car, remembering how it had felt like _nothing_ ago since he saw that very same car pull up _into_ the campsite.

He doesn’t cry when the Howells truly disappear with a crunch of gravel, a brief wave out of the window and a final beep of the horn.

He doesn’t cry when he flops onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling for a total of two whole seconds before a customer comes knocking on the door for him and he has to force himself up and give his assistance to whichever idiot had forgotten a torch or left their walking boots at home or something.

He doesn’t cry at dinner, pushing the curry thoughtfully across his plate with his spoon (it’s a shame that the one night he doesn’t have to endure his own cooking and can have decent food, has to be the one night that he really isn’t that hungry) and telling his parents all about the Howells; how he’d thought they were kind-of idiots at first (telling his parents about their very city-like attitude and the overpacking had received a good eye-roll, unsurprisingly) but then when Phil goes on to talk about Dan and how much he knew about the stars, how much he evidently loved the stars and how much he fucking belonged here, with the stars, he chokes up a little bit. He coughs, ducking his head and taking a sip of water, disguising it pretty well.

He doesn’t cry when evening falls in pastel colours and he remembers how this’ll usually be the time where Dan will come into the cabin after dinner and tell Phil stories about his day; what had happened during the hike, how shit Liam is at assembling camping equipment and how no offence, but a pile of bricks really wasn’t worth trekking up that fucking hill for. It’ll be the time where Phil would giggle at every anecdote, patting the space beside the mattress for Dan and Dan would flop down and they’ll be nose-to-nose, feeling the warmth of each-other lingering between them but both of them too shy to make the first move.

Phil sits down, now, stroking the empty side of the mattress wistfully. It’s cold, of _course_ it’s cold; the radiator’s going to switch off soon, but it never really used to matter because they could probably warm up an igloo with the amount they’d cuddle every night – with Dan’s face buried into Phil’s neck and Phil’s arms around Dan’s waist and their legs tangling together underneath the duvet, the radiator would be the least of their concerns.

But Phil’s shivering now, gazing at where Dan should be sitting, lying, laughing, lounging, anything, and he falls onto it, wrapping himself into the cold fabric that still ghosts the scent of Dan; vanilla, spice and aftershave.

Something crackles beneath him, and he freezes. Has Dan been leaving food wrappers in the bed, or something? 

He unwraps himself, wriggling around and searching the mattress until his hands stroke a crumpled scrap of paper. He pulls it out, frowning carefully at it.

It’s a letter.

He reaches over to the bedside table, flicking the lamp on and grabbing his glasses so he can actually make something of the messy, tight handwriting scrawled across the page.

Oh, _fuck_.

_Hi, Phil._

_I don’t know how far I’m going to get with this. You look like you’re about to wake up at any given moment and I probably should’ve started writing this earlier, but whatever. I’ll just get as much of it in as I can._

_It’s not your birthday so I don’t really have a reason to be giving you a gift like this, but I don’t think I need a reason, really. I just wanted to give something back to you, namely to say thank you for this fortnight._

_Also I can’t draw for shit, so, well I guess it’ll just have to be the verbal interpretation of what you’ve given me (which is fucking beautiful, by the way – I’ve already ordered a frame for it). I wanted what I said to have some kind of physical form – something you can keep with you and remember for when I’m not there just like I have with you and your painting._

_Anyway, what exactly was it I said about the meteors? Wait, give me a second, it’ll come back to me. Fuck, writing this early in the morning really wasn’t the best idea, was it?_

_Oh yeah, I remember now. I’ve wasted up so much space and my hand’s already hurting and I’ve barely said anything. Nice._

Phil reads the rest of the letter in black against white, his heart lurching as Dan goes over everything he’d said about the meteors and human love and the atmosphere and burning up and being beautiful in exquisite detail, his vocabulary eloquent and well-written.

_Just remember that I love you, Phil Lester._

_I’ll love you until the last meteorite collides with the sky._

_(also text me)_

_Dan x_

Phil flops onto the bed, the papery remanence of Dan cold in his clasp.

 _Then_ he cries. His chest tightens and his eyes burn and he collapses into helpless, heartbroken sobs into the pillow Dan had slept in, each and every shred of consciousness in his body yearning for him.

-

The drive back home isn’t really a happy one, not for Dan at least, but it’s weirdly comfortable. Dan’s parents are chatting away about the camping trip (Dan can’t actually believe his _father_ , as in the same father that won’t step out into any zone that doesn’t have a subway station within walking distance had actually enjoyed himself) and Liam reads the star maps.

Dan smiles to himself at that – perhaps there were more benefits to this trip than he’d anticipated. Maybe, just _maybe_ , there’s more than a zero-point-three chance of them returning after all.

He watches as the endless miles of trees and hills and clear skies and mountains fade into traffic, noise, people, and concrete, and his eyes don’t move from the window once. He’s missed the city, sure, but he’ll miss Phil more.

But it doesn’t have to be a sad ending, does it? Sure, they’ll miss each other, it’ll be really fucking hard to sleep in an empty bed tonight and look up to orange skies and be woken up to trains rushing past his house, but it isn’t the _end_ , and after all – distance makes the heart grow fonder, right?

Perhaps they belong apart. After all, imagine the chaos that would ensue if two stars were to collide? What if the Sun were to collide with Sirius? Perhaps, like stars, they _need_ the distance, they need the space and the time and the lightyears and the atmosphere separating them.

Because they’re not the same. They don’t belong in the same place – it just wouldn’t work. Because as Phil’s isolated, Dan’s surrounded. As Dan’s the city; the bustling, noisy, polluted roads, Phil’s the countryside; the solitary, quiet, clean paths without another figure in sight for miles. Dan’s science, Phil’s fiction. Dan’s astronomy, Phil’s astrology. As attracted as opposites are towards each other, they’re still _opposites_.

But they have the same common ground; they’re under the same stars. Phil may see them every night and Dan may only really see them in books or through layers and layers of pollution, but they’re there. Like their love for each-other; their unlikely love sparked by a freak twist of fate, it’ll always be there; no matter how many lights from the city try to outshine it.

And that’s what makes it work – the stars.

-

Three months later, and Dan still thinks of the stars. He thinks of the campsite and the teenager with black hair and blue eyes and he gazes up at the framed painting through tear-filled eyes, wondering if, in this very moment, somewhere across the country where the stars shine brighter, Phil might be reading his letter.

-

_Cold, empty mattresses and falling stars_

_My, how they start to look the same_


End file.
